@simonize_our_watches said:

At the end of the episode Robert Culp, the murderer, gets caught when he searches for the victim's contact lens. (It wasn't really lost. Columbo played a typical trick.) In Beverly Hills Cop Axel Foley disabled the car watching him with a banana in the tail pipe. Columbo apparently used a potato to disable the murderer's car in the same way, to trap him in the repair shop.

Here are the scenes:

• Columbo Sets Up a Trap for Brimmer | Columbo

• Beverly Hills Cop - Banana in the Tailpipe (1984)

But, is it believable? Perhaps, if you know how to do it like Columbo and Axel.

• Potato in exhaust pipe

• Banana in the Tailpipe

Of course we all know what the expression "Don't fall for the banana in the tailpipe" means.

Those experiments suggest that neither way works. But the Beverly Hills episode certainly could have used the same kind of idea as Columbo.