# Things in Your Car That Go "Boom!" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Tags:** soda-softdrinks\ **Created:** [January 29, 2026, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149 "2026-01-29T13:11:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/21 "2026-01-29T15:11:50Z")
Many years back, I had a bunch of cheap lighters. On two different occasions, on hot days, one of them exploded in my car while I was driving. Sounded like a gunshot. Luckily, both times, it was in my backpack so it was contained. A friend of mine had a lighter from the same batch had one explode in her hand. Only Bics after that. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/22 "2026-01-29T15:13:07Z")
Another “not a car” boom story: I was taking a shower once, in a closed stall with a can of shaving cream, when it exploded. BAM! Like a gunshot. I tell you what, the shower’s a good place to be when you get a sudden scare like that. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/23 "2026-01-29T15:17:01Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > Mechanic said the spark plug had not been screwed all the way in, and the engaged part of the threads in the head stripped. He said he was able to screw the plug back in and engage enough threads to hold. This is hard to imagine, but it held. Spark plugs blowing out and taking the threads with them is, at least, common enough that there’s youtube videos of how to fix them. IIRC, this was the first [South Main Auto video](https://youtu.be/B3irFj2XeCM) that I watched. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/24 "2026-01-29T15:22:02Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > See, if you had drunk it all, that wouldn’t have happened! 😄 True. But if we had, certain other things wouldn’t have happened later. Priorities. 😈 > [@wolfpup](#): > > In my capacity as an annoying professional pedant, may I sing to you: I must say … you have a lovely singing voice. I fear this sort of homophone choice error is only going to get worse as more and more of us speak our posts and let our phones convert the noise into words. > [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > can of shaving cream, when it exploded. BAM! Like a gunshot. I tell you what, the shower’s a good place to be when you get a sudden scare like that. As long as you don’t slip and fall after the jump scare. But I daresay cleanup of whatever stuff(s) got sprayed about was nice and easy. So there’s that. 😁 ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/25 "2026-01-29T15:29:43Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I tell you what, the shower’s a good place to be when you get a sudden scare like that. Don’t you just roll it into a ball and move on? 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/26 "2026-01-29T15:34:16Z")
I don’t know if it was on purpose, but the thread title made me think of this 1980s song by L’Trimm. ![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/6fMERyRz498/maxresdefault.jpg)https://www.youtube.com/embed/6fMERyRz498?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque&list=RD6fMERyRz498 ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/27 "2026-01-29T15:38:06Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Our furnace guy said that the heat exchanger was failing early due to using “cheap Chinese steel” when it was manufactured. He assured us that we had been in no immediate danger of dying from asphyxiation, since heat exchangers were designed to prevent any leaking in the house since the 60s when people _did_ die from failing heat exchangers. > > But once he had taken out and replaced our old furnace, he showed us the PVC pipe that had vented the exhaust from the heat exchanger to the outside-- the failing heat exchanger had been generating so much heat, it had burned _ **completely** _ through the bottom of this thick, heavy-duty PVC pipe. We had probably been mere hours from disaster 😱 Indeed. I had friends living in a large modern house – not exactly sure of its age, but definitely much, much newer than the 60s – who called a furnace guy because they were seeing soot in some of the heat vents. No one understood how serious this was. The first thing the furnace repairman did was shut off the furnace, and informed them they were getting carbon monoxide in the house. There are several lessons here, one of which is that even modern furnaces aren’t necessarily immune to such failures, and the other is the importance of augmenting smoke detectors with CO detectors. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/28 "2026-01-29T15:49:02Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > My furnance has been going boom in the night after I lower the thermostat. That and all others sorts of setteling noises. It’s clinker! [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/fjNqLOorulI/maxresdefault.jpg "IIIIIIIt's a clinkerrrr!!!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjNqLOorulI) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/29 "2026-01-29T15:51:11Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > Don’t you just roll it into a ball and move on? I meant to rinse off the shaving cream. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/30 "2026-01-29T16:04:16Z")
I hope she wasn’t injured! ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/31 "2026-01-29T16:06:37Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > True. But if we had, certain other things wouldn’t have happened later. Priorities. AH! LOL LSLGuy: Was it good? Lady Friend: Was what good!?! ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/32 "2026-01-29T16:13:36Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I sat up and saw a power strip beginning to melt Last Christmas season one of our lighted blowmold figures started burning, flames licking out of it. I started to unplug it, but the cord gave me shocks. I can’t remember what I did exactly, but I got it unplugged somehow. Quite the scary choices to be made there. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/33 "2026-01-29T16:27:35Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > under the right circumstances, your furnace can kill you Who had ‘in the basement, with a pipe’? > [@wolfpup](#): > > In my capacity as an annoying professional pedant, may I sing to you: > > 🎵 … Doe – a deer – a female deer … 🎶 > > Whereas “dough” is slang for “money”, and also the stuff you make bread and biscuits out of. 🙂 Have you ever been on a cruise & seen all of the bread animals? Have you looked at all of the Pillsbury shaped cookies in the refrigerated section of your grocery store? Deer shaped biscuits don’t seem so outlandish! 😛 A gunshot! :astonished\_face: Because I was already halfway there, I went to an event a night early & got a hotel room, in July. Futzing around the next day because no one else was coming in until late afternoon. I got in my _hot_ car & put down the windows & drove about a mile until I’m stopped at a red light. I was the first car at the light & there wasn’t even another car next to me when I pulled up (so there’s no way I cut someone off or they were otherwise road raging on me.) Just as the light turns green there’s a very loud bang & I can feel the back of my neck is immediately wet. I put my hand on my neck & apply pressure while I stomp on the gas & drive about three blocks around the bend so I’m at least out of the line of fire & screech into a parking lot. I pull my hand away to look at it to see how bad…& it’s brown, not red! WTF, I’m not a cyborg??? Turns out there was a can of Diet Coke in the rear seat footwell that exploded & some of the soda hit the back of my neck. Between the _very_ loud noise & the immediate wetness I thought I was shot from something outside & behind my car. While I knew the soda was there, the car was both significantly cooler than five minutes earlier & I wasn’t moving, being stopped at a red light so it wasn’t even jostled at that minute which is why I didn’t even think of the can back there. BTW, soda stains are nigh impossible to get out of a tan roof liner! 😦 ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/34 "2026-01-29T16:29:06Z")
> [@bobsmom101](#): > > God, I miss them. You don’t have to. You can listen to hundreds of their shows wherever you get your podcasts. I don’t listen to anything else in the car. I turn them on and smile and laugh the whole drive. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/35 "2026-01-29T16:52:55Z")
Once when I cranked my car, I heard a loud ‘BANG!’ Whatever it was, the car wouldn’t start. I had it towed to a garage, and when they looked at it it turned out that something in the battery had ‘exploded’ and blew out part of the battery case. ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/36 "2026-01-29T17:01:55Z")
Ah, yes. Our younger daughter has a Useless Secret Superpower. She can cause her cars to make Funny Noises. But when anyone else is in the car, it usually doesn’t work…. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/37 "2026-01-29T18:16:14Z")
In the “exploding soda” category: I once had an open case of 7-Up (or Sprite) cans that I forgot in the trunk of my car, on a very cold winter night. The next morning, I found a few cans had exploded but somehow the soda was just a bunch of crystals on the trunk carpet. I dragged the wet-dry vacuum cleaner outside and managed to suck out all the crystals while everything was still frozen. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/38 "2026-01-29T19:07:26Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > I dragged the wet-dry vacuum cleaner outside and managed to suck out all the crystals while everything was still frozen. Oh, wow, thanks! I had completely forgotten about what’s going to happen when the temperature goes up into the 20’s next week! It’ll still be cold Saturday, so I’d better clean that stuff out while I can. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/39 "2026-01-29T19:11:01Z")
My home has made some loud bangs/reports during very cold temps. I guess they’re nails and beams contracting but the first few times sound close enough to a rifleshot from up in the attic to stop a heart. > [@Joey\_P](#): > > A friend of mine had a lighter from the same batch had one explode in her hand. I saw that happen 2 or 3 years ago. A guy gently tapped a pipe, there was a loud crack, and his hand was empty and his eyes were saucers. All things considered, it was lucky it wasn’t near his face or in his pocket but especially that it wasn’t lit. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149/40 "2026-01-29T19:20:21Z")
The very first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-your-car-that-go-boom/1027149.md?page=3)