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A question recently dawned upon me: do cars explode when they are compressed at junkyards? It seems like the answer would be 'no', obviously, or else this would most likely not be common practice. But after seeing so many explosions in movies (and yes, I realize that they are just movies, but I still assume there must be some truth there), I am under the impression that crushing a car into a cube would pose this risk given the leaking fuel and possible sparks from metal grinding against metal.

Anyone have any insight on this?

Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2
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Ola
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2 Answers2

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My father is a retired fire fighter and has seen many cars on fire. He says that they don't burn the way they do in the movies. Even with a full fuel tank, the intensity of the fire increases once the integrity of the fuel tank is compromised but they don't explode.

At stated above, before a car is crushed it's subjected to a "depol" (depolltion) procedure at the vehicle dismantlers and part of this is to remove all fluids from the vehicle.

Steve Matthews
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Before a car is crushed, either the entire fuel tank or the contents of the fuel tank are removed from what's left of the vehicle, so there is no risk of explosion. At least here in the US, this is a requirement for environmental reasons (I would assume it is likewise throughout the civilized world). If the engine is left in the vehicle (usually not), all of the fluids must be drained from there as well (oil, antifreeze, power steering fluid, transmission fluid, etc.). Believe me when I say, when a car is crushed, there is very little left worth keeping on the vehicle.

Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2
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