So lastnight I got an oil change at Pohunka Acura in Chantilly VA.

This morn, I notice this piece on the floor near my feet on the way to work.

Any idea where this little plastic piece goes.

ps- pohunka acura in Chantilly VA is really horrible, everytime I have gone there, its required a trip back. - especially when they had to repaint my trunk, back under body spoiler, and driver side door cause they chiped the hell out of the paint when they were fixing the rattle.. so yeah THEY SUCK !!!!!!!!!!!!

Here are the pics of the plastic piece, I assume it came from underneath or the door or something, but could not find anything at all.

 

I dont have the TL yet, so I couldnt say for sure, but looks like a piece covering something under the steering column.

I too have a question: How come most plastic items have that little clock thingie printed on it?

 

Did they take your doors apart? It looks to me like it is the small panel that pops out behind your door handle (as it covers screws holding the door panel in place). I can't really tell what color that piece is, but in my car since I have black interior, it is black.

I know you found it in the footwell, but there is nothing down there with such a small cover.

 

It's an idiots watch. I have no clue.

 

My TL is 04 NBP Black interior

 

Oh really. THe clears things up. How does one change the battery?

 

AdamNJ - your a god dam genius, I just ran outside and thats exactly where it went !!

 

Same thing happened to me awhile ago. Took me about 2 weeks to figure out what it was. Mine just popped out on its own.

 

The "clock" is in the mold. It can be used for a lot of indications such as what month the part was molded, or more likely in this case which cavity of the mold it came from. I don't believe there is any defacto standard to what it indicates.It used for some aspect of process control.It looks like the there are 4 fill points which get trimmed off and 8 push pins to kick the part out of the mold.

 

Exactly, a few days ago I also found mine lying on the floor. It is the piece that covers up the door panel screws behind the door open handle (inside).

 

Maybe you guys are slaming your doors too hard and it flys off?

 

Must be why mine have never come off...... I am one anal wanker when it comes to slamming car doors.... My wife use to think I was a nut.. Now she cringes when others do it to their cars

 

It's always popped out while I have the valet parking. Fat-finger valet!!!

 

I agree. Nothing worse than a person slamming doors or rubbing their shoes on the door when they get out of the car.

 

Couldn't agree more. Everytime my fiance's friends get out of the car and slam the door...I cringe.

 

If they were guys you could hit em... Too bad. Just mention it sometime during the drive.

 

this happens a lot - the tiny "latch" area is poorly made (as are many things in the TL).

The one on my passenger side fell out after I had my car tinted - might have been the tint guys when they removed the door. Went back in and hasn't fallen off again (I made sure it's back on their tightly).

 

The clock thingy is to show date of molding, in case they have a bad run of parts they can id them with ease.

usually mold number is indicated by a fixed number on the part, the dial is used so they can move it each month without engraving the mold.

Yes, it is the door latch screw cover, has been an issue since the car went on the market, doubt they will ever fix.

 

It's called a date code. Just about everything that is manufactured has some sort of date code or serial number to be able to trace back to the date of manufacture... Often times for legal issues and/or recalls. Most warehouses try to use FIFO method for distributing parts... First In First Out. Just means the part that's been sitting around the longest gets distributed next.

Why a clock? Though injection molded plastic pieces are cheap when produced in very high quantities, the tooling (mold) is not... The dial is circular, so the date can be changed at will or even automatically. Depending on the run, date codes could even categorize material down to the minute it was produced (though I wouldn't be sure why?)

Make sense?

 

Yah. That clears up a lot. I always thought it had something to do with the type of plastic, but that was just a guess.