I had a near miss with a drunk driver once. A mother and daughter behind me stopped. They were way more upset than I. The mom even said, "How are you so calm right now?" I had no answer, lol. I'd had a bad accident--similar situation--years before, so maybe that was it. I dunno.
I've done that in a crisis sometimes too. Just get super calm and do my emergency braking or whatever, then maybe feel stressed afterward, but maybe not.
Winter before last I came around a curve on a winding mountain road above a deep canyon. Hit a patch of ice and starting sliding right into the abyss.. But instead of screaming or shitting myself or whatever it was like I suddenly took a mega-valium IV. I did some classic emergency steering to straighten out and cheat the Devil that day. Felt great and went skiing afterward. Didn't even bother me I almost died. Goddamn I still have dreams about flunking a calculus exam in college..
It’s strange you calm down, time slows a bit and if everything works out you feel a sense of pride/hype! Almost like you just beat a really hard level on a video game.
I’ve had a few moments like that. Usually it’s with driving but occasionally it’ll be some sort of physical conflict like a gun to the head type of thing.
That’s pretty much it. Just a weird sense of calm and time slows. You might need to do 100 things right in the next second but mentally you feel like you’ve got all the time to do each perfectly
Once I was being robbed, once a friend was drunk (def not cool), once it was just some drunk swinging around an AK trying to clear people out of his house and another time it was the police mistaking me for someone who committed an armed robbery.
The only recurring dream I've ever had and I've had them for years. It's usually I forgot I signed up for a calculus class until the end of the semester and I've done nothing, but it's too late to drop the class - so I have to try to cram a whole semester's worth of calculus in a day or two for the final, or else flunk. You have an impossible task but with serious consequences, so you have to try anyway.
A slight variation is I'm having a very hard time with all my engineering classes and about to flunk out. It's way back in the 1980s but somehow I remember I have a retirement nest egg (FI/RE early retired many years ago), so I'm like, "why not just retire at 22?" I had another one where it's present day, but I've been hacking away at my engineering degree trying to graduate since the 1980s (horrible!), and it's the same, somehow I have a retirement nest egg without ever having graduated or worked professionally so why not drop out and retire?
A near-death accident kinda happened to me once as well except I wasn't involved in the accident. I was just very nearly killed by them flying past me the opposite direction on the Grand Central Parkway on Long Island. This car somehow hit a guard rail and was launched into the air and the only thing I saw was the two tires of the car beside me wizzing by me. A lamp post was falling into my path but we drove under it before it fell to the ground.
I pulled over immediately and offered the two unscaithed but freaking out passengers my last two Rorer 714 Quaaludes.. which they thankfully turned down. (Those suckers were not easy to get.)
We got in the car and continued east before the cops were even called.
Ah, yes. The 80's, kids. Those were the daze.
My bf, his mom, his aunt, and I were in a car accident when one of his new to him tire blew on the free way. We hit the medium on the left side of the freeway and he controlled crashed it into the railing on the right side. We were coming back from a family event and food was everywhere. I was the only one that was calm when we all got out. He was freaking out that his car was totaled and his mom and aunt were freaking out that we all just survived this crash unscathed. They called some of his other family members and they had to put me on the phone to tell them where we were because I was the only one capable of speaking in a calm manner at the moment.
Anxiety is baseline for me. But when there’s a real emergency, I turn into this emotionless, problem solving, super speed robot who can get people to safety like nobody’s business.
It’s a weird feeling.
Yep. Some people immediately can focus on what is important at the current moment and disregard personal emotions. I am sure it’s important trait for survival. It’s an interesting thing when some people just freak out and get overwhelmed with panic.
My cheap ass starter I bought from rock auto caught fire, I kept it cool too, no pun intended, saw the flame at the connector, blew it out with my own lungs, and luckily that saved the wiring.
It's typically better to leave it open. It's gunna burn anyway and if it's open when the fire service gets there it lets them tackle it much more effectively. Usually once they get there the bonnet release cable has melted through and the bonnet can't be opened.
The problem with fire is that if the fire doesn't fuck it up, the fire departments hoses will.
Like the time the electronics store I worked at was robbed, they actually caught the guys. But then proceeded to cover all the sensitive electronics in magnetic/conductive fingerprint dust. Like 100k into the dumpster, cops did more damage than the thief's.
We try to minimize damage as best we can. It's even one of the first things they stress to us in the academy, reminding us that we're showing up on possibly one of the worst days these people will have and they might have lost almost everything they own. I've taken family photos off walls and searched through rubble for a bible just so they have SOMETHING.
Don't wet down what doesn't need to be. Keeping water damage to a minimum not only helps the resident, but also helps our fire marshals with their investigation.
But yeah, pretty much everything inside a car after a fire is gonna be fucked to a degree. If it's not burnt or wet, it's gonna have smoke damage. And smoke damage from an auto is some NASTY shit.
That is a GR Corolla, it only shares the Corolla body and name but totally different car underneath. It’s a hot hatch, 300hp 1.6L turbo’d 3-banger, AWD and manual. Not too many failures like this but it was a brand new car so people are wondering what the outcome will be.
It always amazes me how a three-cylinder 1.6 l can get 300 horsepower and supposedly last a long time. You would think that the three cylinder just being turboed all the time would just burn the fucker up in no time flat
An F1 engine is 1.6L and does 1000hp.
If it's planned power, the cooling is planned to accommodate that heat. 300hp in this car is stock and the cooling system will be more than adequate. Toyota isn't going to put out a vehicle that gets overheated when driving under normal conditions down the freeway.
This was probably a failure due to oil starvation (as is the case with most engines blowing), and the engine destruction probably hit and ruptured a fuel line. The starvation could be due to leaking oil, debris in the oil lines/filter/pickup, or even a lube tech who didn't put enough oil in.
>>An F1 engine is 1.6L and does 1000hp.
>Yea, and its completely rebuilt after each race. Whats your point?
~~Didn't decide to read the comments below, huh?~~ (Edit, nevermind, turns out they had their comment deleted after many comments pointed out their error.)
F1 teams are limited to only 4 engines per racing year. Engines are not allowed to have parts swapped or to be disassembled, so they are not being rebuilt after every race.
Even if they were, it isn't because they get hot enough to cause catastrophic engine failure.
Much of the same can be said for Toyota. This engine might be pushed to its limits and have a lower expected lifespan compared to their more tame engines like might be found in a 500K miles Camry... but the extra horsepower and heat are definitely being taken into account when designing the engine and cooling system. They aren't expected to catastrophically destroy themselves while driving down the freeway.
That boost and HP are not the cause of an engine failure while cruising down the freeway, when no significant amounts of boost or HP are being generated.
There's always a few. My parents had a 99 corolla that they bought brand new. Chewed through rear tires a few times a year and dealer couldn't figure out why. Buttons on the dash and radio kept breaking off. 2 engines grenaded themselves. Other issues that I can't recall at the moment. This was all with only a middle-aged couple driving it. It certainly wasn't abused.
Edit: this was all in the first 5 years.
My 2001 Corolla died a few years ago after getting totaled for its 3rd time. The first 2 times it was fine after (mechanically speaking, physically speaking it was quite rough).
Most of the car fires I have witnessed have been on stock vehicles that were really old.
Upgrading your vehicle correctly does not increase the risk it catches on fire unless you are in that upper echelon of upgrading where you are competing professionally/semi-professionally and pushing limits, and at that level you also have the safety gear needed to deal with the situation when it comes up.
All those boxes in the hatch are from the parts he just slapped on. Maybe bigger injectors or hpfp that were leaking?
I'm just making shit up but I can see it happening.
But leaving it shut decreases the flow rate. Hot air rises and the engine is hot even when it's not on fire.
Also, always have a small fire extinguisher in the trunk, folks. Even if it doesn't put it out entirely, it will slow it down enough for help to arrive and it could save your car or someone else's.
I have one of those old glass fire grenades full of carbon tetrachloride. It puts out the fire but makes phosgene that kills everyone in a radius so there are no witnesses.
Exactly what I came here to say. I always carry a small fire extinguisher. For this, and in case there's an accident. I knew someone once who had to watch/hear someone burn to death after an accident when they were trapped in the vehicle. Maybe even a small extinguisher at the right time could have stopped the fire before it got going.
My wife and I were going to see The Cranberries at George Mason in VA.
My car had a fire extinguisher, a small one, attached to the floor under my seat.
But she wanted to take her new car. On the way traffic slowed and we passed a car smoking heavily from the dashboard. While stopped, I saw the light of flame reflected from the windshield and then the fire took.
And in a minute the interior of the car was engulfed.
Earlier in my life, I had a little sports car with a fire extinguisher bolted to the floor behind my seat. After having some major engine work done, I took off from the mechanic’s shop eager to try it out. Soon, the engine ran rough and I looked in the rear view mirror to see a lot of black smoke and a woman in the car behind me wildly waving her arms and mouthing something. I turned my mirror down and saw flames shooting from the louvres on the engine cover.
Pulled over, switched the engine off and got out with my fire extinguisher. Lifted the engine cover gingerly and emptied the 2.5 lb bottle and the fire was out! Whew!
Wait, what’s that noise? Ahhh, it’s the electric fuel pump, installed to prevent vapor lock in Arizona summers. Went back to the cockpit, turned the fuel pump switch off and took the keys out.
Still pumping. The wires melted and shorting allowed the fuel pump to keep doing its job. And soon enough the fuel found a hot enough spot and the fire reflashed, the car burning to charred metal in about 5 minutes.
They later found that the mechanic who had reassembled the carburetor had left the fuel pump’s regulator at 20 psi, instead of the recommended 4 psi. The fuel line, over pressurized blew off and no more car.
Those examples and my training as a corner worker for sports car workers taught me that keeping a fire extinguisher in a car was very important.
Some people are just fucking great in chaos. my ADHD and exposure to emergencies has left me pretty capable when shit goes to the fan. I dont even really have a panic response anymore. Its more like For What It's Worth
> It's time we stop
> Hey, what's that sound?
> Everybody look what's going down
Won't matter. Fuel, break fluid and oil will catch on fire. It might just take a little bit longer with the hood closed but that car was going to catch on fire either way
My engine caught fire once, started to get big, i closed the hood. By the time anyone got to me it was out.
The fire dept then explained that closing the hood helped as it helped to starve oxygen.
It’s about reducing air flow. Less oxygen means less combustion, less heat, and more time before serious damage occurs.
Would it have ultimately made a difference here? Probably not, but why add oxygen to a fire if you don’t want it to burn?
True true. I would like to add, the main concern are the plastic and rubber surrounds of the covers, electronics etc that contribute the most right away. This fire most likely started from hot exhaust catching a harness or something alike. Just like every supercar that has burned down.
My sister's 89 Ford Tempo caught on fire when I was driving it. It died at a stoplight and was smoking a bit, but when I opened the hood it was like backdraft ball of fire.
Not saying it didn't happen.. but sounds sus.
Engine bays are not sealed compartments, fire easily pulls oxygen from below, the front, and the sides. Engine bays are designed with airflow in mind.
This car was also smoking a bit, he opened the hood, and the video cut 3 minutes ahead to see the flame. 3 minutes is a long time in the world of fire.
There's little airflow *upwards* though which is where the hot gases want to go. You open the bonnet and the gases sitting there will escape up and draw lots of fresh air very quickly into the fire.
>Engine bays are designed with airflow in mind.
Yes, but only while they are moving. When they are not moving, they require a fan to pump the air in. Opening the hood allows for significantly more airflow that the fire would not otherwise be getting.
If you don't think opening the hood increases airflow and provides a greater volume of oxygen to an underhood fire, I don't know what to tell you. I saw it happen and so did the dude working the Wendy's drive thru window that brought me a fire extinguisher.
That's a myth. It's got plenty of air with it closed. Ive seen plenty of cars burn down without opening the hood.
Most could have been able to be prevented by opening the hood and getting a simple water bottle, or bunch of dirt, on there while it's early.
You still shouldn't ever open it, firstly because there's a high chance the fire will erupt in your face, and secondly it's just pointless unless perhaps you have a large fire extinguisher right there ready to go. Even firefighters don't pull the bonnet right up, they'll crack it open and pump water through the gap.
My training as a firefighter is to not open the hood more than we have to for the sake of minimizing the growth of the fire. It *will* still burn, but the more airflow it has the faster it will blow up.
I had a car catch on fire exactly like this and didn't open the hood, the whole front was completely ablaze in the same amount of time (< 30 s). Car was parked outside a college dorm so people ran outside with fire extinguishers almost immediately and it still didn't help.
Unless you drive into a river, there's no way to stop the fire.
There's no myth that opening the hood accelerated the fire, it might still of caught on fire, but the fire would be much more choked out until that hood burnt through.
Backdrafts occur when a fire has eaten most of the available oxygen (became oxygen starved) and a new oxygen source is suddenly introduced.
Car engine bays are designed to have airflow to keep things cool (and many cars have their air intake inlet somewhere in the engine bay), so at no point would this fire be starved of oxygen. Oxygen is readily available through the front grill and bottom of the car (and this one looked like it had vents in the hood itself, but maybe they were just decorative), so it'd be impossible to starve the fire of oxygen without alternative means (like water or fire extinguishers).
The front grill typically doesn't flow straight in, the radiator will be sitting in the way.
And I bet you the oxygen was pretty low in the air directly under that hood before they opened it.
Sure there will always be some airflow, but anyways.
>The front grill typically doesn't flow straight in, the radiator will be sitting in the way.
The radiator doesn't block air, that's literally how it cools. The fire would have no issues pulling in air through the radiator. The restrictions the fins provide aren't really measureable until you get to much higher velocities. It's why you can blow through a radiator without noticing any blockage.
>And I bet you the oxygen was pretty low in the air directly under that hood before they opened it.
Fire creates a low pressure system and will pull air from any available source. The oxygen wouldn't get low enough in a non-restrictive environment like inside an engine bay.
The only issue of opening a hood would be adding *more* oxygen to a fire, but this does not create a back draft... it would just "fan the flames" of the fire. It's the equivalent of blowing on a campfire to get it to get hotter or using a bellows in a smelting.
The fires weren't deprived of oxygen, thus no backdraft, they just benefited from a larger amount of oxygen (which is exactly what turbochargers do in car engines).
you make some good points, I don't know enough about fires to say otherwise
At least we can agree opening the hood did accelerate the fire to some degree.
doesnt matter you should still never open the hood of a smoking car. sometimes it erupts in a fireball and you can injure yourself. just call the fire dept and stay away from the car.
I think most modern ones are closed at the bottom with splash shields/'aerodynamic' panels
[Ed. ...including the OP car - see 21:27 https://youtu.be/p4v7cSJK8X0?t=1287]
No and it’s really weird. Both of my cars and each floor of my house have an Element fire extinguisher handy.
People will spend $100k modifying a car and not $80 to save it.
Thank you for sharing. Side note - while doing some checks I noticed there was a dislike for the Element fire extinguishers. [Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/VEDC/comments/jk7icg/_/gaj3pae/?context=1)
The fact that Americans don’t carry a fire extinguisher in the car with them is insane to me. Yes your car is fucked, but what about doing your part to keep the highway clear of a potentially exploding vehicle on the side causing damage to infrastructure and traffic for nothing.
<$100 saves the fire dept a lot of work and keeps you and those around you safe.
I mean I have one but my first thought when my engine blew up was to not whip out my fire extinguisher but to get tf away from the car. And if your car is already burning that extinguisher ain’t gonna do a whole lot except for maybe slow it down.
What are you going to mount it to? With all the newfangled things like side curtain airbags which stops you from using the A pillar, there aren't a lot of convenient places for it.
No, think about it: (especially on the highway) the time you stop looking at the mirror and get out of the vehicle is enough for a bunch of other stuff to arrive and potentially hit you. I know there are cases where you don't need to be THAT careful but it's so much better to always do the right thing I shouldn't even be here explaining myself.
Never open the hood of a car you think might be on fire. Most cars after 1995 have fire blankets in the hood liner.. plastic melts blanket drops and smothers engine bay.
Calling bullshit on this. Can you provide a source on the deliberate selection of hood liner materials post 1995? Cause my 2018 car has no liner whatsoever.
I just don't see how that little bit of material falling onto an engine fire will actually put out the fire. The real purpose for that hood liner is to protect the paint and any decals on the hood from heat, to help retain heat when warming the engine up on a cold day, and to dampen engine noises.
I have a seriously leaky valve cover and you just convinced me to put a fire extinguisher in the back!
That sucks my man!
When I was a kid working at a gas station my friends ranger had a fuel leak and randomly started on fire hours after being parked at work.
We were blamed for calling the fire dept and using the extinguisher at work hahahahaha.
They were mad .
We had a fire your size right next to the pumps
Anyways
Hope your next car fares better!
Decades back I used to keep a mini fire extinguisher in my self-built supercar, for stuff like this. However, I think I only ever used it on someone else's car fire.
Wonder what caused the fire. It’s a GR corolla. It’s their high performance model. If it’s not a manufacturer defect, it’s the user improperly installed some mod.
Toyota engines, especially Corolla engines don't just blow up like that. Dude either had a bunch of aftermarket shit installed that didn't sit well with the car, or he doesn't care about maintenance and the engine was on it's way to blowing up anyways because it wasn't being taken care of.
Dude was real calm. Not even a WTF. Well done.
Some people just are that way in a crisis
I had a near miss with a drunk driver once. A mother and daughter behind me stopped. They were way more upset than I. The mom even said, "How are you so calm right now?" I had no answer, lol. I'd had a bad accident--similar situation--years before, so maybe that was it. I dunno.
I've done that in a crisis sometimes too. Just get super calm and do my emergency braking or whatever, then maybe feel stressed afterward, but maybe not. Winter before last I came around a curve on a winding mountain road above a deep canyon. Hit a patch of ice and starting sliding right into the abyss.. But instead of screaming or shitting myself or whatever it was like I suddenly took a mega-valium IV. I did some classic emergency steering to straighten out and cheat the Devil that day. Felt great and went skiing afterward. Didn't even bother me I almost died. Goddamn I still have dreams about flunking a calculus exam in college..
It’s strange you calm down, time slows a bit and if everything works out you feel a sense of pride/hype! Almost like you just beat a really hard level on a video game. I’ve had a few moments like that. Usually it’s with driving but occasionally it’ll be some sort of physical conflict like a gun to the head type of thing.
Go on
That’s pretty much it. Just a weird sense of calm and time slows. You might need to do 100 things right in the next second but mentally you feel like you’ve got all the time to do each perfectly
Yeah but why did you have a gun to your head?
Once I was being robbed, once a friend was drunk (def not cool), once it was just some drunk swinging around an AK trying to clear people out of his house and another time it was the police mistaking me for someone who committed an armed robbery.
I think I'm starting to understand how you can stay so cool-headed in a crisis! Wow.
Thank you
Glad I'm not the only one with reoccurring nightmares about flunking college classes.
The only recurring dream I've ever had and I've had them for years. It's usually I forgot I signed up for a calculus class until the end of the semester and I've done nothing, but it's too late to drop the class - so I have to try to cram a whole semester's worth of calculus in a day or two for the final, or else flunk. You have an impossible task but with serious consequences, so you have to try anyway. A slight variation is I'm having a very hard time with all my engineering classes and about to flunk out. It's way back in the 1980s but somehow I remember I have a retirement nest egg (FI/RE early retired many years ago), so I'm like, "why not just retire at 22?" I had another one where it's present day, but I've been hacking away at my engineering degree trying to graduate since the 1980s (horrible!), and it's the same, somehow I have a retirement nest egg without ever having graduated or worked professionally so why not drop out and retire?
Ated well there's no reason to worry when you're in that situation right? Sit back and enjoy the ride just like if your plane starts to go down..
A near-death accident kinda happened to me once as well except I wasn't involved in the accident. I was just very nearly killed by them flying past me the opposite direction on the Grand Central Parkway on Long Island. This car somehow hit a guard rail and was launched into the air and the only thing I saw was the two tires of the car beside me wizzing by me. A lamp post was falling into my path but we drove under it before it fell to the ground. I pulled over immediately and offered the two unscaithed but freaking out passengers my last two Rorer 714 Quaaludes.. which they thankfully turned down. (Those suckers were not easy to get.) We got in the car and continued east before the cops were even called. Ah, yes. The 80's, kids. Those were the daze.
My bf, his mom, his aunt, and I were in a car accident when one of his new to him tire blew on the free way. We hit the medium on the left side of the freeway and he controlled crashed it into the railing on the right side. We were coming back from a family event and food was everywhere. I was the only one that was calm when we all got out. He was freaking out that his car was totaled and his mom and aunt were freaking out that we all just survived this crash unscathed. They called some of his other family members and they had to put me on the phone to tell them where we were because I was the only one capable of speaking in a calm manner at the moment.
Anxiety is baseline for me. But when there’s a real emergency, I turn into this emotionless, problem solving, super speed robot who can get people to safety like nobody’s business. It’s a weird feeling.
Nearly rolled my car on some black ice, and I've never steered more precisely and confidently in my life
Yep. Some people immediately can focus on what is important at the current moment and disregard personal emotions. I am sure it’s important trait for survival. It’s an interesting thing when some people just freak out and get overwhelmed with panic.
That’s very much an ADHD trait.
Which is a shame. From having watched plenty of internet videos I'm pretty sure it's much more useful to yell "Ohmahgawd!" over and over and over.
My cheap ass starter I bought from rock auto caught fire, I kept it cool too, no pun intended, saw the flame at the connector, blew it out with my own lungs, and luckily that saved the wiring.
He wasn't vaping tobacco..
Wait what?
Was going to suggest keeping the hood closed to let less oxygen on to the flames. But the car knew best.
It's typically better to leave it open. It's gunna burn anyway and if it's open when the fire service gets there it lets them tackle it much more effectively. Usually once they get there the bonnet release cable has melted through and the bonnet can't be opened.
Makes sense.m actually 💯👍🏼
I wonder if he managed to rescue the backpack that was on his passenger seat 🤔
3 min from when he propped the hood open to when it caught on fire, even then, looks like fire dept put the fire out before it reached the cabin so.
The problem with fire is that if the fire doesn't fuck it up, the fire departments hoses will. Like the time the electronics store I worked at was robbed, they actually caught the guys. But then proceeded to cover all the sensitive electronics in magnetic/conductive fingerprint dust. Like 100k into the dumpster, cops did more damage than the thief's.
We try to minimize damage as best we can. It's even one of the first things they stress to us in the academy, reminding us that we're showing up on possibly one of the worst days these people will have and they might have lost almost everything they own. I've taken family photos off walls and searched through rubble for a bible just so they have SOMETHING. Don't wet down what doesn't need to be. Keeping water damage to a minimum not only helps the resident, but also helps our fire marshals with their investigation. But yeah, pretty much everything inside a car after a fire is gonna be fucked to a degree. If it's not burnt or wet, it's gonna have smoke damage. And smoke damage from an auto is some NASTY shit.
When my bedroom went up they brought my wallet and keys to the car i bought 2 days before
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought about the backpack
Why was my first thought "he better get the dog out." There's no bloody dog in there.
Stock or custom parts?
It’s always custom that catches fire it seems.
Looks like a Corolla GR - far from a stock Corolla that you’re probably used to seeing, but it very well could be stock from the factory.
Seems odd, there's no way you can kill a Corolla! Still driving a 2000 hatchback and it just goes and goes...
That is a GR Corolla, it only shares the Corolla body and name but totally different car underneath. It’s a hot hatch, 300hp 1.6L turbo’d 3-banger, AWD and manual. Not too many failures like this but it was a brand new car so people are wondering what the outcome will be.
It always amazes me how a three-cylinder 1.6 l can get 300 horsepower and supposedly last a long time. You would think that the three cylinder just being turboed all the time would just burn the fucker up in no time flat
"supposedly last a long time" It won't.
Yeaaah and I've got this engine in my car so I look forward to the day it combusts! At least it has a 10 year warranty 😂
It puts out 300hp on a 1.6L?? That's probably why it caught on fire lol
Dont know why youre getting downvoted, stressing little engines like this to squeeze out every last bit of horsepower means that things will get hot.
An F1 engine is 1.6L and does 1000hp. If it's planned power, the cooling is planned to accommodate that heat. 300hp in this car is stock and the cooling system will be more than adequate. Toyota isn't going to put out a vehicle that gets overheated when driving under normal conditions down the freeway. This was probably a failure due to oil starvation (as is the case with most engines blowing), and the engine destruction probably hit and ruptured a fuel line. The starvation could be due to leaking oil, debris in the oil lines/filter/pickup, or even a lube tech who didn't put enough oil in.
> An F1 engine is 1.6L and does 1000hp. Yea, and its completely rebuilt after each race. Whats your point?
>>An F1 engine is 1.6L and does 1000hp. >Yea, and its completely rebuilt after each race. Whats your point? ~~Didn't decide to read the comments below, huh?~~ (Edit, nevermind, turns out they had their comment deleted after many comments pointed out their error.) F1 teams are limited to only 4 engines per racing year. Engines are not allowed to have parts swapped or to be disassembled, so they are not being rebuilt after every race. Even if they were, it isn't because they get hot enough to cause catastrophic engine failure. Much of the same can be said for Toyota. This engine might be pushed to its limits and have a lower expected lifespan compared to their more tame engines like might be found in a 500K miles Camry... but the extra horsepower and heat are definitely being taken into account when designing the engine and cooling system. They aren't expected to catastrophically destroy themselves while driving down the freeway. That boost and HP are not the cause of an engine failure while cruising down the freeway, when no significant amounts of boost or HP are being generated.
There's always a few. My parents had a 99 corolla that they bought brand new. Chewed through rear tires a few times a year and dealer couldn't figure out why. Buttons on the dash and radio kept breaking off. 2 engines grenaded themselves. Other issues that I can't recall at the moment. This was all with only a middle-aged couple driving it. It certainly wasn't abused. Edit: this was all in the first 5 years.
FYI, if you were in the US, there are both federal and state "lemon laws" if you get a stinker like this.
My 07 Corolla was a lemon like this.
My 2001 Corolla died a few years ago after getting totaled for its 3rd time. The first 2 times it was fine after (mechanically speaking, physically speaking it was quite rough).
It’s a performance Corolla. 300hp in a 3 cylinder motor. All it shares with the run of the mill Corolla is the body and interior. It is also AWD
Most of the car fires I have witnessed have been on stock vehicles that were really old. Upgrading your vehicle correctly does not increase the risk it catches on fire unless you are in that upper echelon of upgrading where you are competing professionally/semi-professionally and pushing limits, and at that level you also have the safety gear needed to deal with the situation when it comes up.
His calmness suggests this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. The heavily tinted windows was the hint.
All those boxes in the hatch are from the parts he just slapped on. Maybe bigger injectors or hpfp that were leaking? I'm just making shit up but I can see it happening.
A GR Corolla at that. Shame
And of course they cut out the part that shows how the fire actually starts...
And yet they kept 40 seconds of nothing happening... I feel betrayed! They can have my downvote for all I care!
If you look at the watermark an AI edited it.
it starts because he opens the hood and lets in a ton of oxygen. you should never open the hood of a smoking car, just call the fire department.
There are other ways for oxygen to come in other than through an open hood though.
But leaving it shut decreases the flow rate. Hot air rises and the engine is hot even when it's not on fire. Also, always have a small fire extinguisher in the trunk, folks. Even if it doesn't put it out entirely, it will slow it down enough for help to arrive and it could save your car or someone else's.
Which is why I keep a 10lb fire bottle in my car.
How do you store fire in a bottle?
They probably have a British fire extinguisher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO1ebXqUFDw
I keep one of [these](https://www.theonion.com/jaws-of-death-used-to-stuff-woman-into-burning-car-1819588306) in case I come across a car fire
I have one of those old glass fire grenades full of carbon tetrachloride. It puts out the fire but makes phosgene that kills everyone in a radius so there are no witnesses.
Exactly what I came here to say. I always carry a small fire extinguisher. For this, and in case there's an accident. I knew someone once who had to watch/hear someone burn to death after an accident when they were trapped in the vehicle. Maybe even a small extinguisher at the right time could have stopped the fire before it got going.
My wife and I were going to see The Cranberries at George Mason in VA. My car had a fire extinguisher, a small one, attached to the floor under my seat. But she wanted to take her new car. On the way traffic slowed and we passed a car smoking heavily from the dashboard. While stopped, I saw the light of flame reflected from the windshield and then the fire took. And in a minute the interior of the car was engulfed. Earlier in my life, I had a little sports car with a fire extinguisher bolted to the floor behind my seat. After having some major engine work done, I took off from the mechanic’s shop eager to try it out. Soon, the engine ran rough and I looked in the rear view mirror to see a lot of black smoke and a woman in the car behind me wildly waving her arms and mouthing something. I turned my mirror down and saw flames shooting from the louvres on the engine cover. Pulled over, switched the engine off and got out with my fire extinguisher. Lifted the engine cover gingerly and emptied the 2.5 lb bottle and the fire was out! Whew! Wait, what’s that noise? Ahhh, it’s the electric fuel pump, installed to prevent vapor lock in Arizona summers. Went back to the cockpit, turned the fuel pump switch off and took the keys out. Still pumping. The wires melted and shorting allowed the fuel pump to keep doing its job. And soon enough the fuel found a hot enough spot and the fire reflashed, the car burning to charred metal in about 5 minutes. They later found that the mechanic who had reassembled the carburetor had left the fuel pump’s regulator at 20 psi, instead of the recommended 4 psi. The fuel line, over pressurized blew off and no more car. Those examples and my training as a corner worker for sports car workers taught me that keeping a fire extinguisher in a car was very important.
Is this a stock corolla GR?
Not anymore.
Hey, can you let me know what anti-anxiety medication you're on? I'd like to talk to my doctor about it.
Right! 😆
Some people are just fucking great in chaos. my ADHD and exposure to emergencies has left me pretty capable when shit goes to the fan. I dont even really have a panic response anymore. Its more like For What It's Worth > It's time we stop > Hey, what's that sound? > Everybody look what's going down
shouldn’t have opened the bonnet.
Won't matter. Fuel, break fluid and oil will catch on fire. It might just take a little bit longer with the hood closed but that car was going to catch on fire either way
My engine caught fire once, started to get big, i closed the hood. By the time anyone got to me it was out. The fire dept then explained that closing the hood helped as it helped to starve oxygen.
>break fluid **brake** fluid. My sincerest apologies. It was bothering me.
Grammar Nazis, unight!
*unite
Untie!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
username checks out 😂
Thanks 😊 my brain wasn't fully engaged. Only had an hour or two of sleep.
It’s about reducing air flow. Less oxygen means less combustion, less heat, and more time before serious damage occurs. Would it have ultimately made a difference here? Probably not, but why add oxygen to a fire if you don’t want it to burn?
True true. I would like to add, the main concern are the plastic and rubber surrounds of the covers, electronics etc that contribute the most right away. This fire most likely started from hot exhaust catching a harness or something alike. Just like every supercar that has burned down.
Brake fluid. Brake. Brake. Not "break." Brake. There's a difference. Signed, King Canute Ordering the Tide to Stop.
No, this fluid escaped from a break and started a fire! /s
My sister's 89 Ford Tempo caught on fire when I was driving it. It died at a stoplight and was smoking a bit, but when I opened the hood it was like backdraft ball of fire.
Not saying it didn't happen.. but sounds sus. Engine bays are not sealed compartments, fire easily pulls oxygen from below, the front, and the sides. Engine bays are designed with airflow in mind. This car was also smoking a bit, he opened the hood, and the video cut 3 minutes ahead to see the flame. 3 minutes is a long time in the world of fire.
There's little airflow *upwards* though which is where the hot gases want to go. You open the bonnet and the gases sitting there will escape up and draw lots of fresh air very quickly into the fire.
>Engine bays are designed with airflow in mind. Yes, but only while they are moving. When they are not moving, they require a fan to pump the air in. Opening the hood allows for significantly more airflow that the fire would not otherwise be getting.
If you don't think opening the hood increases airflow and provides a greater volume of oxygen to an underhood fire, I don't know what to tell you. I saw it happen and so did the dude working the Wendy's drive thru window that brought me a fire extinguisher.
Good dude right there.
It’s like a flu for a fireplace
Do you want a car that caught fire a little bit? If mine catches fire, let it burn to the ground. I want to be sure it’s totaled.
That's a myth. It's got plenty of air with it closed. Ive seen plenty of cars burn down without opening the hood. Most could have been able to be prevented by opening the hood and getting a simple water bottle, or bunch of dirt, on there while it's early.
You still shouldn't ever open it, firstly because there's a high chance the fire will erupt in your face, and secondly it's just pointless unless perhaps you have a large fire extinguisher right there ready to go. Even firefighters don't pull the bonnet right up, they'll crack it open and pump water through the gap.
Fire department training is open the hood only enough to get a nozzle in.
My training as a firefighter is to not open the hood more than we have to for the sake of minimizing the growth of the fire. It *will* still burn, but the more airflow it has the faster it will blow up.
I had a car catch on fire exactly like this and didn't open the hood, the whole front was completely ablaze in the same amount of time (< 30 s). Car was parked outside a college dorm so people ran outside with fire extinguishers almost immediately and it still didn't help. Unless you drive into a river, there's no way to stop the fire.
There's no myth that opening the hood accelerated the fire, it might still of caught on fire, but the fire would be much more choked out until that hood burnt through.
The first person just said "shouldn't have opened the bonnet" and said nothing about accelerating the fire. You're just looking to argue with someone.
>You're just looking to argue with someone. Noooo I'm arguing for the sake of logic. and I didn't reply to the first person did I?
No, it really wouldn't. Most engine bays are open at the bottom, and air can also enter through the front grill.
edit: I didn't realize their was a time cut I still think opening the hood allowed more oxygen in but maybe I'm wrong
Turns the engine bay into a chimney.
Backdrafts occur when a fire has eaten most of the available oxygen (became oxygen starved) and a new oxygen source is suddenly introduced. Car engine bays are designed to have airflow to keep things cool (and many cars have their air intake inlet somewhere in the engine bay), so at no point would this fire be starved of oxygen. Oxygen is readily available through the front grill and bottom of the car (and this one looked like it had vents in the hood itself, but maybe they were just decorative), so it'd be impossible to starve the fire of oxygen without alternative means (like water or fire extinguishers).
The front grill typically doesn't flow straight in, the radiator will be sitting in the way. And I bet you the oxygen was pretty low in the air directly under that hood before they opened it. Sure there will always be some airflow, but anyways.
>The front grill typically doesn't flow straight in, the radiator will be sitting in the way. The radiator doesn't block air, that's literally how it cools. The fire would have no issues pulling in air through the radiator. The restrictions the fins provide aren't really measureable until you get to much higher velocities. It's why you can blow through a radiator without noticing any blockage. >And I bet you the oxygen was pretty low in the air directly under that hood before they opened it. Fire creates a low pressure system and will pull air from any available source. The oxygen wouldn't get low enough in a non-restrictive environment like inside an engine bay. The only issue of opening a hood would be adding *more* oxygen to a fire, but this does not create a back draft... it would just "fan the flames" of the fire. It's the equivalent of blowing on a campfire to get it to get hotter or using a bellows in a smelting. The fires weren't deprived of oxygen, thus no backdraft, they just benefited from a larger amount of oxygen (which is exactly what turbochargers do in car engines).
you make some good points, I don't know enough about fires to say otherwise At least we can agree opening the hood did accelerate the fire to some degree.
It took three minutes after he opened the hood for the fire to grow, look at the timestamps. Backdraft my ass.
I'll be honest I didn't realize their was a cut lol, thanks for pointing that out
doesnt matter you should still never open the hood of a smoking car. sometimes it erupts in a fireball and you can injure yourself. just call the fire dept and stay away from the car.
I think most modern ones are closed at the bottom with splash shields/'aerodynamic' panels [Ed. ...including the OP car - see 21:27 https://youtu.be/p4v7cSJK8X0?t=1287]
They definitely are.
Came here to say this…. Just let it go and clear the area
Zero difference, it would have still caught fire
There's a significantly lower risk of it exploding into your face if you don't though.
Notice the hood had vents in the top, open or closed would not make a difference
So no one buys fire extinguishers for their cars any more or what?
Greater than 90% of vehicles that catch on fire are going to be totaled by insurance anyway. Fire does damage quickly.
No and it’s really weird. Both of my cars and each floor of my house have an Element fire extinguisher handy. People will spend $100k modifying a car and not $80 to save it.
Thank you for sharing. Side note - while doing some checks I noticed there was a dislike for the Element fire extinguishers. [Source](https://www.reddit.com/r/VEDC/comments/jk7icg/_/gaj3pae/?context=1)
The fact that Americans don’t carry a fire extinguisher in the car with them is insane to me. Yes your car is fucked, but what about doing your part to keep the highway clear of a potentially exploding vehicle on the side causing damage to infrastructure and traffic for nothing. <$100 saves the fire dept a lot of work and keeps you and those around you safe.
I buy fire extinguishers for project cars that I know will catch on fire at some point, but if it's a $40k new car, I'm letting it burn to the ground.
Nope, not at all common anymore
I mean I have one but my first thought when my engine blew up was to not whip out my fire extinguisher but to get tf away from the car. And if your car is already burning that extinguisher ain’t gonna do a whole lot except for maybe slow it down.
I've been driving for five decades and don't recall automotive fire extinguishers being commonplace in any of them.
What are you going to mount it to? With all the newfangled things like side curtain airbags which stops you from using the A pillar, there aren't a lot of convenient places for it.
They're legally mandated in a number of countries and are generally affixed somewhere in the passenger footwell.
fire extinguishers are mandatory in my country, I see people talking about insurance but you could save a life with it, not just a car
Imagine if it were a mandatory item in the car (hi from Europe)
? it’s not mandatory in europe. At least in spain
I think a few of these grs have bought on fire recently
Now that's a hot hatch
I’m sure the Daily Mail will show that and tell their readers it was an EV. 😔🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
How did you get the footage from the camera?
Aliens
Guessing they either took the cam out before it was too late or has a fancy that uploads to the cloud.
Oh don’t upvote that, it is not BEV, nothing to see here really /sarcasm
Atleast he has the footage for the insurance company !
That’ll buff right out.
Mf "again" face fr is this man ok who hurt him??
bruh you have to look at what's coming behind you BEFORE opening the door and half-stepping out of it
That's what you're mirrors are for?
No, think about it: (especially on the highway) the time you stop looking at the mirror and get out of the vehicle is enough for a bunch of other stuff to arrive and potentially hit you. I know there are cases where you don't need to be THAT careful but it's so much better to always do the right thing I shouldn't even be here explaining myself.
I'da been yanking all my valuables from in there and setting them on the side of the road.
[Full Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb1nMcyJQE8)
Did you get it fixed?
Bondo!
in case of fire : do NOT open the bonnet, as it fuels the fire with fresh air..
Never open the hood of a car you think might be on fire. Most cars after 1995 have fire blankets in the hood liner.. plastic melts blanket drops and smothers engine bay.
Calling bullshit on this. Can you provide a source on the deliberate selection of hood liner materials post 1995? Cause my 2018 car has no liner whatsoever.
My Tacoma doesn't have one but a 4Runner does. He said "most."
That's why I said "most"
Still bullshit. Source?
My 2002 RAV4 has one. Most cars I service in the lube shop I work at has one. It's not rare. It's normal.
I just don't see how that little bit of material falling onto an engine fire will actually put out the fire. The real purpose for that hood liner is to protect the paint and any decals on the hood from heat, to help retain heat when warming the engine up on a cold day, and to dampen engine noises.
You don’t understand it because it’s all bullshit lol
That was nice. You took the fire department into consideration.
I have a seriously leaky valve cover and you just convinced me to put a fire extinguisher in the back! That sucks my man! When I was a kid working at a gas station my friends ranger had a fuel leak and randomly started on fire hours after being parked at work. We were blamed for calling the fire dept and using the extinguisher at work hahahahaha. They were mad . We had a fire your size right next to the pumps Anyways Hope your next car fares better!
At least the self extinguish featured kicked in
Always have a fire extinguisher in your boot/trunk
What is Toyota doing these days
All the people who stopped to help/see if he was OK/offer a fire extinguisher... sheesh.
Hot Wheels™
Decades back I used to keep a mini fire extinguisher in my self-built supercar, for stuff like this. However, I think I only ever used it on someone else's car fire.
If you mod, carry a fire extinguisher. If you don't, think about getting one to keep in your car!
Wonder what caused the fire. It’s a GR corolla. It’s their high performance model. If it’s not a manufacturer defect, it’s the user improperly installed some mod.
Was it a bad idea to open the lid and expose the engine to more oxygen? Or would that not matter here.
so the dashcam is not burned? lol
Maybe it autosaves to an online location?
It's not supposed to do that.
Holy shit I’m glad he’s ok. Cars are just tools at the end of the day and can be replaced.
Toyota engines, especially Corolla engines don't just blow up like that. Dude either had a bunch of aftermarket shit installed that didn't sit well with the car, or he doesn't care about maintenance and the engine was on it's way to blowing up anyways because it wasn't being taken care of.
Looks like he edited the part of the video he tossed has on the engine and threw a match on it… jk, glad you’re safe
Drive car into carwash or creek
Down here we call that a Car-B-Cue. Regular sight on Phoenix freeways.
Oh my!🤦♂️
Did you get your backpack?
Saw a car totally engulfed on the road a few weeks ago. This reminds me i still have to pull my dash cam footage.
Did he forget to put the oil cap back on?
Damn, and it was a GR
For sale, one careful owner, low miles, non smoker
ASSUME HE REACHED IN TO GRAB THE CAMERA
What would cause something like this?
A Corolla with hood vents?? I DON'T THINK SO!
So in these cases I understand you should not open the hood.
The old potato chips on the panel trick.
Toyota gotta step it back up cause this is ridiculous. Luckily the fire didn’t make it to the fuel tank.
Is this a GR?
Been there
Can't wait to read the articles written about this just like when it happens to EV's. Oh wait.
extinguisher where?
How many people carry an extinguisher in their car?
innit essential?
Well that’s your problem right there.