TOP up the oil, replace a spark plug...feed the 7ft boa constrictor?

It’s not every day mechanics at Carringtons of Oxford come face to tail with a slippery customer while carrying out an MOT.

But that is exactly what happened when Steve Spacksman and colleague Wayne Hunt flipped the bonnet of a Mini Cooper.

Mr Spacksman, a mechanic at the garage on the A40, near Eynsham, said: “To be fair, it is not what you expect to see when you open a bonnet.

“I have not seen anything like that in my life. We gave it a bit of a poke and it started to disappear into the car panels.

“So then we started to try to pull it out, because if it had got lost inside of the car we may never have found it again.

“It started to wrap itself around my arm.

“We were told later it had not eaten for a while, but it was still pretty strong.”

It is still a mystery where the snake came from or how long it had been hidden in the engine.

The owner of the Mini Cooper, although a reptile lover, had never seen the creature before.

Boa constrictors do not have fangs or venom, but instead coil around their prey and squeeze the life out of them before they eat them whole.

The RSPCA said that they could not collect the snake until the next morning, so they should leave it where it was.

But, according to Mr Spacksman, the car’s owner was not having any of it.

He said: “The owner of the car knew about snakes and managed to get it out of the car.

“He did not seem bothered, he just wanted his car back.”

The snake was then kept in a closed bin overnight until it was picked up by the RSPCA earlier this month.

The mechanics had estimated the snake as being about 5ft long, but the animal inspector said it was actually closer to 7ft.

Mr Hunt said: “The snake was dealt with properly and luckily it had done no damage to the car.

“The RSPCA told us that it looked thinner than it normally would, which could mean it had been living under the bonnet for a while.

“In all the years I have worked as a vehicle technician, I have never seen anything like it.”

The reptile has now been re-homed and is believed to be enjoying a new life in a tank in Hertfordshire.

It is not the first time a snake has given the county’s car mechanics a fright.

Last June, Cowley mechanic Graham Chilton also came face to face with a 3ft-long snake when he reached under a van bonnet.

Mr Chilton was carrying out an MOT test when he made the discovery at Tyreryte Service Centre, in Marsh Road, Cowley.