Wise BITOGers,
I want to ask about a strange and scary thing I saw tonight.
A Kia Optima was sitting at the stoplight on the exit ramp I take to come home. When the light changed, the Kia sat there for several seconds and then began to move--very, very slowly. Putt...putt...putt...putt. It sounded like it was running on maybe two cylinders. I hadn't heard an engine that sick in a long time. As the Kia began to move, it was smoking from the tailpipe and from underneath the car. The smoke was gray and it didn't smell like burning motor oil, transmission fluid, or coolant. It smelled a little like burning plastic and a little like the odor of welding, if that makes any sense.
The Kia accelerated very slowly. I was still in second gear at the spot where I'm usually shifting my Tacoma into fourth. I kept my distance because the smoke coming from the Kia smelled so bad.
Then I noticed a few sparks coming from the Kia's tailpipe. Within half a mile, the sparks had increased in size and number until the car was spitting a steady stream of red-hot cinders out of the tailpipe. You've been behind a sanding truck after a snowstorm? That's what this looked like, except it was spraying cinders all over the road. Some of the cinders looked to be a good half an inch wide.
I dropped farther back. Then I noticed a glow underneath the car. Within a quarter of a mile, tops, the entire muffler and tailpipe were glowing cherry red, like the element on an electric stove. Meanwhile, the torrent of cinders kept spraying out of the tailpipe. The smoke had pretty much stopped by then.
I wondered if I should try to get the guy to pull over--he seemed oblivious to what was going on--but to tell the truth, I was afraid to get too close to the Kia. Red-hot metal plus hot cinders and sparks plus gas tank--not a combination I want to be near. There was a police car in the line of traffic behind me, so when I reached my road I turned off, figuring that the situation was best handled by law enforcement. When I left the main road, the Kia was still chugging along at about 35 mph with the entire exhaust system glowing like the elements in a toaster oven and red-hot cinders flying out of the tailpipe.
I have no idea what the final outcome was.
What can cause such a problem? My only guess, based largely on the sound of the car at the stoplight, is that at least half the cylinders were dead because of an ignition problem, and those cylinders were pumping unburned fuel into the exhaust manifold. The unburned fuel ignited in the catalytic converter and eventually produced enough heat to burn the guts out of the converter and the muffler.
I had never seen anything like it.
Any ideas as to the cause?
I want to ask about a strange and scary thing I saw tonight.
A Kia Optima was sitting at the stoplight on the exit ramp I take to come home. When the light changed, the Kia sat there for several seconds and then began to move--very, very slowly. Putt...putt...putt...putt. It sounded like it was running on maybe two cylinders. I hadn't heard an engine that sick in a long time. As the Kia began to move, it was smoking from the tailpipe and from underneath the car. The smoke was gray and it didn't smell like burning motor oil, transmission fluid, or coolant. It smelled a little like burning plastic and a little like the odor of welding, if that makes any sense.
The Kia accelerated very slowly. I was still in second gear at the spot where I'm usually shifting my Tacoma into fourth. I kept my distance because the smoke coming from the Kia smelled so bad.
Then I noticed a few sparks coming from the Kia's tailpipe. Within half a mile, the sparks had increased in size and number until the car was spitting a steady stream of red-hot cinders out of the tailpipe. You've been behind a sanding truck after a snowstorm? That's what this looked like, except it was spraying cinders all over the road. Some of the cinders looked to be a good half an inch wide.
I dropped farther back. Then I noticed a glow underneath the car. Within a quarter of a mile, tops, the entire muffler and tailpipe were glowing cherry red, like the element on an electric stove. Meanwhile, the torrent of cinders kept spraying out of the tailpipe. The smoke had pretty much stopped by then.
I wondered if I should try to get the guy to pull over--he seemed oblivious to what was going on--but to tell the truth, I was afraid to get too close to the Kia. Red-hot metal plus hot cinders and sparks plus gas tank--not a combination I want to be near. There was a police car in the line of traffic behind me, so when I reached my road I turned off, figuring that the situation was best handled by law enforcement. When I left the main road, the Kia was still chugging along at about 35 mph with the entire exhaust system glowing like the elements in a toaster oven and red-hot cinders flying out of the tailpipe.
I have no idea what the final outcome was.
What can cause such a problem? My only guess, based largely on the sound of the car at the stoplight, is that at least half the cylinders were dead because of an ignition problem, and those cylinders were pumping unburned fuel into the exhaust manifold. The unburned fuel ignited in the catalytic converter and eventually produced enough heat to burn the guts out of the converter and the muffler.
I had never seen anything like it.
Any ideas as to the cause?
