4 ms·
Interesting read, I remember the crash but never heard what happened. Quote of the day from the article about the early days of Autos: >Car fires are a common
by jmclnx 4y ago
Interesting read, I remember the crash but never heard what happened.
Quote of the day from the article about the early days of Autos:
>Car fires are a common enough occurrence along America's freeways. A gas line breaks under the hood and soon the engine is engulfed in flames. The cure? Pull over, get out, find a long stick, and start roasting marshmallows.
- rootusrootus 4y agoWhen I read that my first thought was "I bet most car fires are electrical or exhaust related, not from a random gas line leak."
- SoftTalker 4y agoThe first "new" car I ever bought had a rubber gas line under the hood that was never properly clipped into place. It rubbed against the edge of the clip until eventually it cut through the line causing a leak. Fortunately I smelled the gasoline before it caught fire. I don't buy new cars any more. I buy well used ones, they are the survivors, and someone else pays the depreciation and finds the lemons.
- peteradio 4y agoFortunately gasoline will generally evaporate in moderate heat rather than ignite! Unless there is another ignition source which might be common enough on a poorly maintained vehicle. I've driven cross-country with a leaky fuel rail, would not recommend!
- sonofhans 4y ago> I don't buy new cars any more. I buy well used ones, they are the survivors, and someone else pays the depreciation and finds the lemons. Yes, exactly, right there with you. A good car will still be good after 10 years of use. Any car that isn’t worth buying at that point isn’t worth buying to begin with.
- giantg2 4y agoI assume all fires in EVs are electrical. I doubt there are very many true electrical fires in ICE vehicles. Even if there is an arc, you need some kind of fuel to get a real fire going. Sometimes that might be the rubber/plastic components. But I feel like it's more likely to just be the ignition source for a fuel leak.
- peteradio 4y agoPlastic burns pretty well, my 1991 F150 had a fire under the hood that was entirely electrical.
- giantg2 4y agoMany automotive plastics have fire retardant additives. It's certainly possible to have an entirely electrical fire. I just think it's a much lower rate.
- peteradio 4y agoI don't know what to tell ya, I assume I'm not an exceptional case. Maybe the characteristics change after 25+ years of use and multiple hundreds of thousands of miles.
- rootusrootus 4y agoBasically all of the fire recalls on ICE vehicles in the recent past have been electrical in nature.
- giantg2 4y agoDo you have a link to those? I specifically remember the biggest recent offender being Hyundai due to non electrical oil issues. https://www.consumernotice.org/personal-injury/vehicle-safety/highway-vehicle-fires/ https://www.consumernotice.org/personal-injury/vehicle-safet...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Gordonjcp 4y agoPetrol boils off too quickly to be a massive problem, it's vapour and gone before anything happens. Brake fluid has a high boiling point, a low flash point, and it's sticky. Burst a brake pipe and spray that onto a hot exhaust and you've got a great source of fire. I know from personal experience that if you can get the exhaust manifold hot enough (like, dull red) and you pop a coolant line, the water will boil into steam leaving the glycol antifreeze which will burn with an acrid greenish flame.
- BizarroLand 4y agoI had a friend who had 3 cars burst into flames inside of two years. It was the strangest thing, engines caught on fire out of the blue. Admittedly, he was pretty poor (we all were at that time) and his cars were old beaters, but that didn't explain how three different cars could have their engines set on fire out of the blue in such a short time period. The strangeness of this situation finally revealed itself when I witnessed him checking the oil on his car. It was low, (they all burned oil) and he had some on hand to top it up. I watched him open a bottle and dump it into the intake, spilling copious amounts before getting it settled in. He was basting his engines in oil. No one ever taught him to use a funnel or told him he might want to clean up spills like this. When you make something idiot proof, the universe makes a better idiot.
- Infernal 4y agoWhen you say he dumped the oil into the intake... are you using the word intake to mean the place in the valve cover where the oil is supposed to go? To me, when you say intake, I immediately am thinking of the air intake.
- mikestew 4y agoNot OP, but I'm going to guess confusion between "intake" and the hole in the valve cover where oil goes. I say this because I imagine the result of pouring it into the intake is a non-starting car, not a fire. Cars don't run on 10W-40.
- mikeryan 4y agoI’d assume both. Leak to provide the fuel and a spark to ignite it.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoThis is why I carry a fire extinguisher in my car
- knodi123 4y agoRight next to the marshmallows.
- giantg2 4y agoI used to do this. I redid my fuel lines and needed the correct type of extinguisher in case something happened during that. Then I just kept it in the car for years.
- oxfeed65261 4y agoI actually used the fire extinguisher I used to carry in my ‘79 Buick LeSabre to put out a fire but I ended up regretting it. Smoke started pouring out from under the hood, so I pulled over and popped the hood and saw a blazing fire. I ran in a panic to the trunk, got the extinguisher, and put out the fire. It turned out that the air conditioner compressor had seized up and stopped turning, causing the belt to overheat and catch fire. The fix was simple: remove the remains of the belt and everything was fine. Roll down the windows when it’s hot. If I had let the car burn out and be totaled I would have saved a lot of trouble, including endless transmission leaks and a busted U-joint which led to my coasting to the side of the road with the driveshaft (connected only at the front) dragging and bouncing and throwing up showers of sparks down the freeway.
- NegativeLatency 4y agoHad a similar thought, if the car is empty it's a different consideration to when it's loaded up with my camping gear or other possessions.
- oxfeed65261 4y agoYeah. I started carrying the fire extinguisher because my parents’ full-size Chevy van burned up with all of their camping supplies, clothes, guns, etc. from a three-month roadtrip. Also melted the front of their trailer before the highway patrol arrived. Brave/insane CHP officer pulled the propane tanks off of the trailer before they blew. I had nothing of value in the Buick. Ironic, as Ms. Morissette would say. My parents bought the Buick from my grandmother to drive home to Virginia after the van fire, and they gave it to me for my senior year of college. My fire was a couple of years after graduation.