When do cars explode?

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@Scruloose

I’ve seen gas tanks ignite due to lead poisoning from a .50 cal. Granted, it was a boat, and it was twice on the same boat, but it happened.

While I was serving aboard a patrol boat in Florida, we happened upon a Cuban migrant boat, as we often did. This boat was home made from sheets of steel welded together in the shape of a hull, an old car engine driving a propeller, 2 gas tanks, and a back up mast with sail. The whole thing was scratch built. When we found them, they were relying on the sail as the engine had died. Once we took the Cubans off the boat, we sank it as a hazard to navigation. We shot it up with the .50 which ignited the gas tanks. It certainly wasn’t a destructive explosion as seen on TV, but the tanks went up in an impressive fireball.

Like the video shown above, what you are seeing is less of an explosion and more of a ‘The gas tank was shattered and the fuel spread around and caught fire while burning’

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@Duckster

IIRC, if a car is on fire, the real threat of explosion comes from the tires and the bumpers.

I have a hard time buying that, car tires really don’t have a lot of air in them.

[Enola_Straight]

@x-ray vision

Check this out! :eek:

Thats just a few miles from my house!

[Clothahump]

@x-ray vision

Check this out! :eek:

Damn! I knew the Tollroad Authority was rough on you if you didn’t pay the tolls, but I didn’t know how rough!

[Rick]

@Booker57

Modern cars have gas(nitrogen) charged impact absorbers that may explode if heated enough. Most of the time a seal fails and the N just WOOSHES out.
Spread the fire out but did not extinquish it. Experence is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted.

Some cars have nitrogen filled absorbers, many cars don’t. Even so, nitrogen is not flammable, and is also present in gas filled McPherson struts, shock absorbers, hatchback/hood/trunk struts. I doubt that the venting of such a gas cylinder would spread a fire as nitrogen is not flammable, and does not support combustion.

[Miscue]

@Enola Straight

Thats just a few miles from my house!

Damn, it’s not in south Florida? Guess I was wrong, assuming that nowhere else in the world would you see multiple drivers pass through and not stop to help.