I laugh because my '99 Civic that still gets better gas mileage at
176k than most of the modern fleet does right off the factory floor
only disqualified by model year. Their loss, I guess :-p
-Bryan
--- On *Mon, 8/10/09, [email protected]
/<[email protected]>/* wrote:
From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: NMC NPC: How to ruin a perfectly good engine
To: "CB" <[email protected]>, "Wiseman, Curtis J"
<[email protected]>
Cc: "Miatapower Miata Power" <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, August 10, 2009, 11:11 AM
They are giving the states and insurance companies a back door
bailout by getting new higher cost vehicles on the road.
What pisses me off is that I have not owned a car that would
qualify for years. Got screwed on the refi deal too.
Eric
-----Original Message-----
From: CB <[email protected]
</mc/[email protected]>>
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2009 9:52 AM
To: Wiseman, Curtis J <[email protected]
</mc/[email protected]>>
Cc: Miatapower Miata Power <[email protected]
</mc/[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: NMC NPC: How to ruin a perfectly good engine
So the government is paying good money for older cars, and
destroying all value in them.
The government is not even getting scrap metal value for the
destroyed engines and cars.
Now paying 3 billion to destroy serviceable engines cars and
parts, with a substantial value.
So they are taking 3 billion and scarping it, return zero.
Perfect.
The only question I have, is what is the interest rate on the 3
BILLION!!!??? we ain't got.
Perfect.
What a great plan.
Vote wisely.
Charles Brown
Wiseman, Curtis J wrote:
The Killer App for Clunkers Breathes Fresh Life Into 'Liquid Glass'
Rebate Program Prescribes Chemical to Stop Car Engines -- for
Good; Mechanics 'Can't Wait'
By KEVIN HELLIKER
Robert Mueller deals in chemicals for a living -- things that can
unstick glue, thin paint, make plastic -- but he'd never seen an
order like the one he got for sodium silicate.
The compound is typically used to repel bugs or seal concrete, but
this buyer's online order form betrayed a whole different intent:
"To Kill Car Engines."
"That worried me a little, so I picked up the phone and called the
gentleman," recalls Mr. Mueller, an owner of chemical-firm CQ
Concepts Inc. in suburban Chicago.
What Mr. Mueller discovered is that sodium silicate is the
designated agent of death for cars surrendered under the federal
cash-for-clunkers program. To receive government reimbursement,
auto dealers who offer rebates on new cars in exchange for
so-called clunkers must agree to "kill" the old models, using a
method the government outlines in great detail in its 136-page
manual for dealers: Drain the engine of oil and replace it with
two quarts of a sodium-silicate solution.
A warning adorns an engine disabled with sodium silicate.
"The heat of the operating engine then dehydrates the solution
leaving solid sodium silicate distributed throughout the engine's
oiled surfaces and moving parts," says the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration publication. "These solids quickly
abrade the bearings causing the engine to seize while damaging the
moving parts of the engine and coating all of the oil passages."
In a nation packed with experts on how to keep cars running, the
engine-killing powers of sodium silicate are a well-kept secret.
"I, like, have so not even ever heard of this before," said Robert
Lutz, new marketing chief and renowned "car guy" at General Motors
Co., in an email.
Often called liquid glass, sodium-silicate solution has been
better known for being used to save motors rather than killing
them: It is used to stop leaks in the gaskets that seal cylinder
heads to engine blocks.
At dealerships across America, mechanics accustomed to fixing
engines are battling for the chance to ruin them. "Everybody wants
to go first, so I'm probably going to have to make them draw
straws," says Jim Burton of Randy Curnow Buick Pontiac GMC in
Kansas City, Kan. As service manager, however, he might reserve
that thrill for himself. "I can't wait," he says.
Over the weekend, half a dozen mechanics gathered around three
clunkers marked for death at Jim Clark Motors in Lawrence, Kan. As
Loris Brubeck Jr., the dealership's president, held a stopwatch,
the sodium-silicate solution took two minutes flat to kill a 2002
Ford Windstar, and just a few seconds more to kill a 1999 Jeep.
But a 1988 Dodge van lasted more than six minutes.
"Sometimes those old engines, they're the hardest to kill," says
Mr. Brubeck.
The automotive death sentences are meant to ensure that
gas-guzzling old models make no return to the road. As sodium
silicate disables an entire generation of junkyard-bound cars, the
price of used engines will likely skyrocket, predicts Michael
Wilson, executive vice president of the Automotive Recyclers
Association. "It's the law of supply and demand."
Before settling on sodium silicate, the government considered
other methods of execution, including drilling a hole in the
engine block and running the engine without oil. But it concluded
that sodium silicate was safest for mechanics and for the
environment. In its instructions to dealers, the government says
that the federal Food and Drug Administration classifies sodium
silicate as GRAS -- "generally regarded as safe."
To engines, however, its damage is irreversible. "Once that
silicate plugs everything up, it would be virtually impossible to
clean that engine out," says Mr. Burton, the Kansas City service
manager.
Consisting largely of ingredients as common as salt and sand,
sodium silicate isn't hard to make. "It is widely available and
inexpensive," said a spokeswoman for the American Chemical
Council. For auto dealers, a car-killing dose costs about $5.
But while manufacturers have plenty on hand, the government failed
to warn distributors about the impending onslaught of demand from
car dealers.
"It's like the government decided to put every old car in America
in mothballs without giving any heads up to mothball" suppliers,
says John See, owner of the ChemistryStore.com near Columbia, S.C.
Mr. See's business mostly sells ingredients to soap and candle
makers, his largest seller being melt-and-pour soap. But within
hours of the federal government on July 24 releasing the details
of the cash-for-clunkers program, a dealer called Mr. See and
asked about sodium silicate. Up to that point, Mr. See's
eight-year-old business had sold only about 150 gallons of sodium
silicate a year, mostly for use to waterproof masonry.
But within moments of learning about its new purpose, Mr. See
ordered enormous supplies and purchased prime space on Google, so
that his company popped up in searches for sodium silicate. Last
week, he sold 4,600 gallons of it, and the rush is continuing.
"We're working 16 hour days, and we've got friends and family
helping out filling orders," says Mr. See.
In Grand Rapids, Mich., a company called Cleaning Solutions Inc.
received a call from a dealer ordering a large supply for the
clunkers program. When an employee recommended investing heavily
in inventory and marketing, owner Ron Balk hesitated. In decades
of selling the product, he'd never heard of it used as an
engine-killer. But a few calls to local dealers convinced him
otherwise: They quickly bought out his existing supply, prompting
him to order large amounts of the product. "We've been working
12-hour shifts ever since," says Mr. Balk.
Back in suburban Chicago, Mr. Mueller says his company sold 15,000
gallons of sodium silicate last week, up from a typical level of
200 gallons a week. "At one point this week I worked 32 hours
without a break," says Mr. Mueller.
His company receives the product in 275-gallon containers and
sells it in smaller amounts, often five-gallon pails. This week,
he says, "the average dealership is ordering one to three pails,
and a five-gallon pail will treat 10 cars."
Long an obscure item in the CQ Concepts catalog, sodium silicate
has become "the best-selling product of the year," says Mr. Mueller.
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