Schwepps
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2006
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Guys, if it were so easy to suck in a random cig butt, can you imagine all the junk that would accumulate in the air filter housing? Insects, leaves, sand...not to mention road spray and raindrops? 
There are car fires every 90 seconds in the US, and that's a country with few smokers per capita. It's also illegal to smoke and drive over there. A parked car wouldn't be sucking anything into the intake anyway, and a lot of spontaneous fires happen to parked cars.
Car fires are caused by accidents or electrical hazard. Electrical hazard caused by bad design or assembly is hard to avoid. But shoddy installation of aftermarket stuff is avoidable. If you install such equipment, ensure that the power comes through the fuse box - the fuses are the only overcurrent protection in a car, unlike in a house where you have MCBs, ELCBs, SPDs...and fuses. Ensure that they're grounded to the chassis so that the potential of the equipment matches the power source (battery) and everything else in the car. Ensure that you're not getting cheap stuff with poor insulation in the first place. Accessory shop workers can be shoddy and lazy, or needing to work fast to roll over the customers. I've seen direct connections to the battery before and the car owner completely oblivious to the fact that the gadget is always live and on, even if the car isn't running.
BTW, if your mechanic recommends using a higher rating fuse when there is a recurring problem of a blown fuse, look for another mechanic. He's just taking your money and letting you drive off without fixing the overcurrent problem.
There are car fires every 90 seconds in the US, and that's a country with few smokers per capita. It's also illegal to smoke and drive over there. A parked car wouldn't be sucking anything into the intake anyway, and a lot of spontaneous fires happen to parked cars.Car fires are caused by accidents or electrical hazard. Electrical hazard caused by bad design or assembly is hard to avoid. But shoddy installation of aftermarket stuff is avoidable. If you install such equipment, ensure that the power comes through the fuse box - the fuses are the only overcurrent protection in a car, unlike in a house where you have MCBs, ELCBs, SPDs...and fuses. Ensure that they're grounded to the chassis so that the potential of the equipment matches the power source (battery) and everything else in the car. Ensure that you're not getting cheap stuff with poor insulation in the first place. Accessory shop workers can be shoddy and lazy, or needing to work fast to roll over the customers. I've seen direct connections to the battery before and the car owner completely oblivious to the fact that the gadget is always live and on, even if the car isn't running.
BTW, if your mechanic recommends using a higher rating fuse when there is a recurring problem of a blown fuse, look for another mechanic. He's just taking your money and letting you drive off without fixing the overcurrent problem.
