Why?

Because when you're replacing the rear brakes, and you put your iPhone on the running board so that it's safely out of the way of anything heavy and greasy, and when you finish the brakes and drive off to road-test the car, the running boards don't keep the phone in a safe place and it falls off and disappears....

Oh dear ….

I phone for sale some scratches.

so easy done bad luck. followed chap the other day with phone on top of car flashed, waved and pointed till told to off so no guilt drivin over it Mine was a blue one!

Have you configured 'find iPhone' feature? 
Gone - Range Rover Supercharged 2006

It was an hour or so afterwards before I realised. Tried that but the phone wasn't responding although not giving an "off" signal; my guess is that it was squished somewhere, and so it hadn't sent an "I'm switching off" signal.

Barred through o2, I now have a temp SIM in a Blackberry which I had lying about, tomorrow I'll speak to the the insurers to see how they want top handle a replacement.

I've had a mobile for over 20 years now - first time I've ever lost one, so I've done quite well.

The really annoying thing was, after I finished the brakes I went indoors to clean up and have a pee and thought "ah, phone on car, must pick that up" and then promptly got distracted and forgot all about it until an hour later when I wondered why MrsC hadn't called to see where I was

ive done that before mine was on the roof for about 10 mins then i saw it fly off down the a406 and get hit by a lorry funny now but not then