headlight fluid
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Etymology: Perhaps first attested in 1986 (see quotations), from headlight (“a bright light, with a lens and reflector, on the front of a motor vehicle to illuminate the road when driving at night”) + fluid (“a liquid”). By analogy with blinker fluid (“fictional automotive product”), itself referencing real automative items and products such as brake fluid (“a special fluid for operating hydraulic brakes and clutches”) and diesel exhaust fluid (“a liquid used to reduce controlled emissions from the exhaust of diesel engines”). Later further popularised as an Internet meme after 2003 by an episode of the web series Red vs. Blue.
Senses: examples: text: My perception was different. Like when the Malibu broke down that first time and I got out and stuck my head under the hood and pretended to understand what I was looking at. Lots of people find themselves in similar situations … but they still hang in there, they still try to do their job, they still try to be helpful. And so they say, "It's your torque converter," or, "It's your internal rotator," or, "It's your headlight fluid." And 999,999 times out of a million they're ignored.
ref: 1986, T. M. Wright, The Waiting Room, Tor Books, →ISBN, pages 271–272:
text: In an attempt to redistribute the weight in my 1984, I have decided to move the battery to the trunk. I have a GNB sealed battery and access to a lot of cable, but need some help on the specifics.
1. Is this a good idea in the first place?
[…]
5. Should I change my headlight fluid while [I've] got the headliner off?
ref: 1994 May 16, Ray Zrinsky, “Are those batteries in your trunks or are you just happy to see me?”, in rec.autos.vw (Usenet):
text: Nope, it means that the last time you had it serviced, they put blinker fluid in your headlight fluid reservoir. (I couldn't resist.)
ref: 1996 April 16, Robert A. King, “Headlight blinking?!?”, in rec.autos.makers.ford.mustang (Usenet):
text: DJ Spike: Hi, Michelle, Alan here from Midas Auto Care. […] We've found a few more problems here […] preventative maintenance, gonna run it by you, see what you think.
Michelle De Palma: Okay.
[…]
DJ Spike: First of all, the headlights. The-
Michelle De Palma: Uh-huh, the headlights?
DJ Spike: Yeah, the headlight fluid's a little low. Er, we're gonna need to top that off.
ref: 2001 May 24, Spike, “Clueless Auto Repair” (0:11–0:33 from the start), in Mojo in the Morning, Channel 955:
text: Captain Dick Simmons: We've got a very important mission for you. You think you can handle it?
Rookie Franklin Delano Donut: Absolutely!
Simmons: We need you to go to the store, and get two quarts of elbow grease.
Captain Dexter Grif: Yeah and, uh, pick up some... headlight fluid for the Puma too.
ref: 2003 April 18, “The Rookies” (1:50–2:03 from the start), in Burnie Burns, director, Red vs. Blue, Rooster Teeth:
text: You: Hey, Favorite Uncle […] Is there anything you want me to do to help, huh?
Uncle Fred: Uh, yeah. Why don't you, er, go over to my toolbox and, uh, get me a can of headlight fluid. I think we're a little low here.
ref: 2005, Roger Welsch, edited by Darwin Holmstrom, From Tinkering to Torquing: A Beginner's Guide to Tractors and Tools, MBI Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 213:
text: There was a neighbor kid who always hung around wanting to help us as we worked on our cars. To get rid of him, we would tell him to go the store and buy us some headlight fluid or a left-handed monkey wrench, and off he'd go.
ref: 2008, Roger Butler, Confessions of a Baby Boomer, Tate Publishing & Enterprises, →ISBN, page 64:
text: I check my headlight fluid about once a month. My truck doesn't really use that much surprisingly... Especially considering I have HIDs
ref: 2013 March 11, 09DBLCAB09, “Muffler Bearing Question”, in Tacoma World:
text: Friendly reminder to check your headlight fluid as the weather gets colder. Don't want it freezing up on you 👍🏻❄️❄️
ref: 2016 December 16, @AustinRC246, Twitter:
text: Titles are likely to mislead the uninitiated. A career counselor would be stunned to hear Job Simulator coaching a neophyte auto mechanic to top up a car's "headlight fluid" in a cartoonish world run by robots; similarly, The Lab is about a lot of things, but the scientific method is not among them.
ref: 2019, Kenneth J. Varnum, editor, Beyond Reality: Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality in the Library, American Library Association, →ISBN, page 64:
text: Have you been replacing your headlight fluid regularly? At what intervals?
ref: 2024 July 3, u/lolpan, “2023 Sport touring hatchback passenger headlight went out”, in r/civic, Reddit:
topics: automotive
transport
vehicles
glosses: A fictional ostensible automotive product, used in jokes, to prank someone into searching for the nonexistent item (a snipe hunt), or to gauge how inept someone is in basic auto mechanics.
wikipedia: Red vs. Blue