Dear Tom and Ray: I had a serious accident on the freeway this morning when I had a blown tire, lost control of my car (’94 Camry four-door sedan), hit the concrete divider, spun out of control and finally came to a rest without hitting another car! Our body shop told my husband that in addition to the body damage, our car has a broken strut.
Is it possible that the strut could have broken and contributed to blowing out my tire? I was uninjured in spite of the fact that I was going about 70 mph when this happened.
– Fran
Ray: Tires can blow out for a number of reasons. A tire can simply be old and worn out. It can have a bubble in the sidewall, or some other previous damage that finally gives out. It could have been underinflated, which can cause tires to heat up and explode. Or a tire could blow out because you ran over a road hazard.
Tom: If the blowout came first, then hitting the concrete barrier could have broken the strut. A strut is a 3-foot-long shock absorber and spring assembly. There’s one at each wheel. And often, we see struts get bent in accidents.
Ray: It’s unlikely that the strut broke first and caused the blowout and collision. The strut almost certainly broke when you hit the barrier.
Dear Tom and Ray: In the 1940s and early ’50s, we had a big old buffalo robe, and I remember my “old man” putting this blanket on the hood of the car or on the engine to keep it warm in the winter. I’m wondering now if this had any effect as far as keeping the engine warm for cold Minnesota morning starts.
– Ken
Ray: Well, let’s start by discussing blanket technology, Ken. A blanket works by slowing heat loss. So, if you wrap yourself in a blanket at dinnertime and then sit outside in zero-degree weather overnight, you’ll lose less heat and be warmer the next morning than you would have been without the blanket.
Tom: But is the same true for a car? Well, the big difference between you and a car engine is that you keep generating heat all night. That’s a function of being alive. The engine just starts losing its heat as soon as you turn it off.
Ray: Does a blanket slow heat loss enough to keep some heat in the engine 12 hours later? Probably not.
Tom: In cold weather, an engine normally loses most of its heat in about three hours. The only exception is the oil, which can take up to eight hours to reach complete equilibrium with the outside air.
Tom: There are better alternatives to blankets these days. Block heaters, which plug into an electrical outlet, make an enormous difference in brutally cold weather. And then there’s the greatest advance ever in cold-weather car-starting: the heated garage.
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