# Aw, c'mon **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [November 12, 2001, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966 "2001-11-12T19:54:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Happy\_Booker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f6c823/32.png) [@Happy\_Booker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Booker)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2001, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/1 "2001-11-12T19:54:43Z")
I hate to have my first post doubting The Master, but the environmental chemist in “New Car Smells” can’t be Dr. Ozonoff. ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2001, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/2 "2001-11-12T22:35:27Z")
1. Forgetting to include a link to the column in question makes Uncle Cecil go something something: [What exactly causes “new car smell”?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990528.html) 2. Ten seconds of searching on Google found the bio page for the good Doctor: [David M. Ozonoff, MD, MPH](http://www.bumc.bu.edu/Departments/PageMain.asp?Page=1217&DepartmentID=97). ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/3 "2001-11-13T14:19:49Z")
But I’m sure **whitetho** also meant to say, “Welcome to the SDMB!” ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2001, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/4 "2001-11-13T23:37:23Z")
**KneadToKnow** , that’s _my_ job. (ahem) (clears throat) Welcome to the SDMB, and thank you for posting your comment. Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site. To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space **before** and **after** the text of the URL). Cecil’s column can be found on-line at the link provided by radiohead **whitetho**. * * * moderator, «[**Comments on Cecil’s Columns**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/forumdisplay.php?forumid=1)» ---
**Author:** ![heresiarch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/278dde/32.png) [@heresiarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heresiarch)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/5 "2001-11-14T04:54:10Z")
How 'bout that? **Dr. Ozonoff** is a real person. He got his MD from Cornell and his MPH from Cartalk University. That’ll teach you to doubt the master. ---
**Author:** ![sigmatot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@sigmatot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sigmatot)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/6 "2001-11-14T15:40:36Z")
Just wondering… What about the upholstery and carpeting? Don’t they also provide at least some of the scent? After all, there is a big surface area from these items inside a car, and they do have a definitive smell when new, as can be easily checked out at any department store. (Beware, you may be looked upon with some interest while ckecking, especially carpets) :eek: Any info about the contribution of said items? ---
**Author:** ![Kamandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5daacb/32.png) [@Kamandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamandi)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/7 "2001-11-14T17:34:31Z")
Is the new car smell the same no matter which car it’s in? Because different cars may have different interior materials, outgassing different chemicals. This would cause the smell in a new Volvo to be different from the smell in a new Chevrolet, wouldn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![\_Twitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/3d9bf3/32.png) [@\_Twitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_Twitch)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2001, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/8 "2001-11-14T20:32:04Z")
One thing that you should be wary of… DiOctylPhthalate is a primary cause of hard disk failure. It corrupts silicon extremely quickly and is very hard to stop with the filters put on the HDDs. So don’t take your laptop to work in your new car… ---
**Author:** ![Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b3f665/32.png) [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/9 "2001-11-15T07:20:43Z")
When I was a wee lass, my aunt’s new Mercury Cougar had a very _extreme_ new car smell. Every time I would ride in it I would get carsick - bad. My parents also had a new car, a Chevrolet Caprice, but the new car smell in that vehicle didn’t bother me that much. One of the big differences in the cars’ interiors was my aunt’s car had those fake leather vinyl seats, and my parent’s car had fabric seats. So I am thinking that the chemical in the vinyl seats was making me sick. Once in awhile I’ll catch a whiff of something that reminds me of that vinyl seat smell and I’ll feel sick again. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/10 "2001-11-15T13:43:48Z")
Eh, Twitch, have you got a cite for this? 😕 [quote] [ul]\*\* [li]DiOctylPhthalate is a primary cause of hard disk failure.[/li][li]It corrupts silicon extremely quickly.[/li][li]So don’t take your laptop to work in your new car.[/ul][/li][/quote] \*\* Or is it just an “everybody knows” kind of thing? 😕 'Cause I ain’t having much success finding anything on Google under “dioctyl phthalate silicon hard drive corrupt laptop new car” and variations thereof. The hard drive in a laptop is sealed off from the air in a hard plastic case, so as to be dustproof, so I would think it would be well protected from the rather small amount of dioctyl phthalate fumes that would be found in a new car. Also, I don’t see any body of data out there saying, “All these people had their laptop hard drives destroyed, and the suspected culprit was the fumes from their new cars.” So? Fight my ignorance, please. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/11 "2001-11-15T13:53:25Z")
P.S. The Better Half, peeking over my shoulder on his way to work (“The guy said _what_?”) and looking at your bolded quote above, adds, “Besides, hard drives aren’t made out of silicon chips, they’re made out of glass and aluminum with a magnetic coating.” So, not that I don’t trust him or anything, but I went and looked it up, and he’s right. > **[How Hard Disks Work](https://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm)** > > Nearly every desktop computer uses one or more hard-disk drives. Your hard disk holds all of the information available on your computer. Take a look inside this incredibly precise storage mechanism. > [@](#): > > In a hard disk, the magnetic recording material is layered onto a high-precision aluminum or glass disk. So, how would dioctyl phthalate fumes affect a hard drive? And yes, I know that glass is made of silicon, but that’s not the same thing. A Google search for “dioctyl phthalate silicon” turns up nothing along the lines of, “Never get any dioctyl phthalate near your silicon, because it will destroy it.” So, got a cite? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/12 "2001-11-15T17:40:04Z")
> [@](#): > > So, how would dioctyl phthalate fumes affect a hard drive? Apparently dioctyylpthalate (DOP) is a [Non-Volatile Residue](http://asiaep.com/my_com/clean/glossary.htm) that can coat the surface of a drive and make it sticky. (Look for NVR in the link) The article [“Designing a Cleaner Hard Drive”](http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:tTfR_53nASE:www.fabtech.org/datatech/journals/edition5/downloads/dt5_45_49.pdf+cleaner+hard+drive&hl=en) gives an overview of the problem without sprcifically mentioning dioctylpthalate. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2001, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/13 "2001-11-15T21:50:12Z")
Okay. Got that. Although…it’s kind of a “qualified” hit: > [@](#): > > **Almost all** of the examples can form a film on the media and cause a stinction problem resulting in drive failure. It’s a website that manufactures “cleanroom” gloves, so as a cynic I kinda wonder why that’s qualified like that. Are they trying to lump a whole lot of sort-of-related chemicals into that “almost all” list, so as to make you think that you, too, might need to buy their gloves to use in your cleanroom assembly plant, if your assembly plant might have “related” chemicals present in the air? There are also several other “qualifiers”: > [@](#): > > Compounds which **may be** NVR sources **can come** from uncured adhesive components, mold release agents (polydimethyl-siloxanes), plasticizers (DOP), oils from motors and bearings, and monomers from tray materials. Anyway, I’m not really quibbling with the fact that DOP is probably bad for the surface of a hard drive, and I do thank you for fetching that link, Squink. (Hey, that rhymes! 😃 ) But–it doesn’t say anything about DOP “corrupting” the silicon. It’s just talking about the mechanical action of an unwanted film on the surface. It also doesn’t say how much of the DOP fumes you’d need to coat the surface of a hard drive and ruin it, how high a concentration of fumes you’d need. I still find it difficult to believe that the small amount of DOP fumes present in a new car could find their way through a sealed hard drive case and ruin the hard drive of a laptop in a new car. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2001, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/aw-cmon/92966/14 "2001-11-16T00:12:26Z")
> [@](#): > > I still find it difficult to believe that the small amount of DOP fumes present in a new car could find their way through a sealed hard drive case and ruin the hard drive of a laptop in a new car. As far as I am aware, there are no air filters on modern hard drives; the whole unit is hermetically sealed. That would mean that any DOP would have to come from plastic inside the drive; so a new car would make no difference. The fumes might affect keyboard contacts and such, but there’s just no exposed silicon in a computer, or a hard drive, for the DOP to eat its theoretical holes in.