Continuation Luton Airport Car Park Fire part II

[LondonJohn]

Originally Posted by Andy_Ross

Also for example the throttle body from something like a modern Jaguar or Aston Martin is a sealed unit, if any of the sensors or pots go faulty the whole thing has to be changed, this can run in to a lot of money for a new dealer part.

For example Maserati introduced a 'fly by wire' throttle with no actual physical linkage between pedal and throttle apart from potentiometers and electrical cables. In the throttle body one of the position sensor potentiometers commonly developed a fault with the track wearing. A new sealed body unit was over £1k but a reconditioned one from a third party is only about £300.

Ah, a fellow Wheeler Dealers aficionado


ETA: I do pretty much all of my own car maintenance (except for stuff requiring specialised equipment and/or software), and as a point of relevance, the very first car I ever owned - a (then) very old Ford Fiesta - caught fire on the M40 on the way to the Cineplex at High Wycombe I went up the motorway to call the emergency services from the nearest phone on the hard shoulder (students def couldn't afford mobile phones in those days) and a fire engine had reached my car and drenched it by the time I returned to the vehicle. Needless to say, it was a write-off, and a slightly scary experience.

I have little doubt that I - along with at least several other contributors to this thread - have forgotten more about motor vehicles than Vixen will ever know.

[Andy_Ross]

Originally Posted by LondonJohn

Ah, a fellow Wheeler Dealers aficionado

It was marvellous until it moved to the USA and is ok again now it has relocated back to the UK.
It had the feel of a different show over there and a lot of the 'in depth' showing you how to do it yourself content was taken out. It had more of the feel of the other US 'spend money and drop replacement parts in' type of shows.

Still miss Edd though. Elvis is OK but not quite up there.

[I Am The Scum]

Weirdest game of Clue ever.

It was the Yakuza
in the car park
with the fake diesel car

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by JayUtah

What does "withstand" mean in this context? I know several structures that can "withstand" fires indefinitely: the ones used to train firefighters in which fires are lit over and over again. The factors contributing to containing a structure fire vary widely by the type of fire and the architecture of the structure. The factors contributing to fire spread also vary greatly, but are generally dominated by the combustible load distribution. By "withstand," we engineers generally mean the structure remains standing. Egress routes may be cut off. Services such as electricity and communication may fail. The structure may be entirely engulfed in flames. But as long as it doesn't collapse, it has "withstood" the fire.

The text in question seems to have been written by the journalist and is not attributed as a quote to any of the consulted experts. As such it may be conflating two dissimilar ideas: structural endurance and rescue accessibility. When are you going to stop trusting journalists to mangle facts for you?

According to Merriam-Webster, it is "What does it mean to withstand fire?
: degree of resistance of material to fire often measured in terms of time of withstanding a standard test fire."

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by catsmate

How curious, given that Traficom states that you can access:

Just as I said.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by MarkCorrigan

Requirements of what?

What exactly do you think I'm asking for a response to?

Requirements for converting an ICE car to a hybrid or EV.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by GlennB

???

Do you mean MH plus 2 digits, for example MH69?

Something like that. From the picture widely released, it looks like a short number from the back of the vehicle.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by lobosrul5

You.... you don't think they could tell it has an ICE rather than lithium-ion batteries You must have a very very very low opinion of the police and fire depts.

If a building is in uncontrollable fire, then the police and firefighters have no idea what type of car caused the blaze, other than a CCTV shot and information from the presumed driver, who, according to urban myth, was in a hurry to catch a plane to an important meeting and was only arrested on his return.

[GlennB]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Just as I said.

Traficom is Finnish. You can't get all those details online in the UK.

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Vixen

According to Merriam-Webster, it is "What does it mean to withstand fire?

: degree of resistance of material to fire often measured in terms of time of withstanding a standard test fire."

That uses the word "withstand" so it does not define the word.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[phiwum]

Originally Posted by Vixen

If a building is in uncontrollable fire, then the police and firefighters have no idea what type of car caused the blaze, other than a CCTV shot and information from the presumed driver, who, according to urban myth, was in a hurry to catch a plane to an important meeting and was only arrested on his return.

If true, that would explain the arrest. Leaving the scene of a fire caused by your vehicle suggests a casual approach to responsibility.

However, where did you hear that?

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

[JayUtah]

Originally Posted by Vixen

According to Merriam-Webster, it is "What does it mean to withstand fire?
: degree of resistance of material to fire often measured in terms of time of withstanding a standard test fire."

What a completely useless answer. I've explained what's wrong with your garbled source. Can you use your own brain to figure out what you meant by citing it, or is that too much to ask?

[MarkCorrigan]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Requirements for converting an ICE car to a hybrid or EV.

I wasn't asking for requirements I was asking for examples of diesels converted to hybrids. I know you can converted a car to an ev by replacing 's lot of the internal, you suggested the vehicle in question was a conversion. Demonstrated it is possible and happening.

The link you provided last time had nothing to do with it. Don't you remember?

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

Indeed they do. I have a little 30 year old sports car and the related owners forums have entire sections devoted to modifications to boost the original engine or to replace the original 4 cylinder with a 6 or 8 cylinder engine or a rotary engine or an EV drivetrain or in a few cases to fit a smaller and very frugal engine. And another entire section devoted to fitting this 1990s car's drivetrain into trackday kit cars or retro-cool older cars.

I also sometimes read build project threads about entirely unrelated models of car too, yet I have never ever seen anyone convert any model of car into a diesel hybrid.

The thing you discover is that, even if you do most of the work yourself, doing it right gets really expensive. So people do not buy a hobby car to modify it into another available model of the same car which they could just have bought ready-made anyway.

TL;DR The reason you can't find an example of anyone converting a diesel Range Rover into the diesel hybrid version is because nobody has done that because it's pointless.

There are youtube videos which explain how cheap and easy it can be to convert an ICE car to hybrid or EV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXCTXxL5lr0

How CHEAPLY Can You EV Convert Your Old Car?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYbMuHpa6wY

Simplest EV Conversion under $3000 - Convert Your Car in 3 Days!

I looked on Google and a replacement battery for a hybrid costs between US$2,000 and US$10,000.

So when my car was written off by my insurers due to the cost of repair exceeding the threshold of circa three-quarters of its market value, despite my pleading with them to pass it for repair*, it was bought by a typical salvager, such as Co-Part and sold on to someone. He contacted me and requested the second key and defa heat-lamp cable (I had tried to send the key to the initial salvagers with no luck and it being returned uncollected). Now this cable is only worth about €20 in a local hardware store and it connects an engine block to the coolant to stop it freezing in wintry weather plus for inside heating to stop the car frosting up overnight with snow and ice, so I presumed he was planning to fix it and resell it.

With the hybrid battery alone, it might have been considered worth his while buying the car on auction for a few hundred euros, probably more as it was less than three years old and only had about 5,000 kms on the odometer.

The initial garage for the insurance company had said it was too expensive to fix because the floor was bent and the wheel axle damaged, together with the wing mirror broken and the bodywork dented. The back of the car was untouched. The selling price is hidden although I could see the car sold on their webpage.

So, all a car enthusiast needs to modify a diesel into a hybrid is the hybrid battery and some mechanical know how. Plus, of course, you need the relevant permissions and approval from DVLA to reregister it.

*The sorrow turned to gladness when I was reimbursed what I had paid for it, as here, if the car is less than three years old you get the market value, instead of a heavily depreciated one. On the downside, the price of a new model had gone up quite a bit so I had to use some of my savings to make up the price difference (but at least it won't need an MOT for four years).

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by catsmate

Indeed. I would have expected that even a badly damaged engine could be identified as EV, HEV, ICE, fairly easily.

Sure, when there is a 1,600°C fire burning right behind you,

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

Would you be surprised to find they also spoke to the driver of the car and ask him if he was the registered keeper and confirmed the car's details that way?

He is said to have dashed off.

[Foster Zygote]

Vixen, please tell us how you think steel welding works. Does it involve melting steel?

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

The building withstood the fire for several hours. You seem to be mixing up some different concepts here.

Nope. According to this lady from Wexford, the floor collapse happened almost immediately.

Screenshot 2023-11-09 172057 by Username Vixen, on Flickr

It is a screen shot as the link seems a bit dodgy.

[LondonJohn]

Originally Posted by Andy_Ross

It was marvellous until it moved to the USA and is ok again now it has relocated back to the UK.
It had the feel of a different show over there and a lot of the 'in depth' showing you how to do it yourself content was taken out. It had more of the feel of the other US 'spend money and drop replacement parts in' type of shows.

Still miss Edd though. Elvis is OK but not quite up there.

As a marginal point of interest, the workshop of the latest "Mike and Elvis" version of Wheeler Dealers is situated very close to my parents' house, not far from Aylesbury.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Foster Zygote

You really should pay closer attention. I only stipulated that the two vehicles I showed, the BMW X5 and the Audi A5, were not available as a hybrid or EV for the generations shown. Both were available with either gasoline or diesel engines, but seeing as both were from the U.S., it's far more likely that both were gasoline burners, as diesel cars account for only about 3% of autos in this country.

And before you protest that the two car fire videos don't count if they aren't also diesels, please remember that they were both presented as examples of how violently an automobile can burn. Also keep in mind that diesel releases about 18% more energy when burned than gasoline. So everything you've been absorbing from "qualified experts", such as self-professed garage and dealership employees about how "a diesel shouldn't have burned like that" is flat out wrong. Once the fire gets started (and there's plenty of flammable material throughout the car to burn fiercely) a diesel is going to burn just as intensely as a gasoline car, if not more so. Furthermore, A Li-ion battery isn't going to cause a fire any more severe than a typical gasoline or diesel car, as per the 2017 NHTSA report (which you ignored):



I look forward to your attempt to link the NHTSA to the Illuminati, or the Morlock/Sleestak alliance, or whatever.

But the fire brigade were there within eight minutes. What was the problem in putting out a simple electrical fire in a diesel car?

Nobody is disputing 'a car burns intensely'.


I notice you have tried to introduce a new strawman in your last sentence.

[Foster Zygote]

Originally Posted by Vixen

...according to urban myth, was in a hurry to catch a plane to an important meeting and was only arrested on his return.

Why in Ed's name would you even introduce such a thing as though it's evidence?

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by Vixen

According to Merriam-Webster, it is "What does it mean to withstand fire?

: degree of resistance of material to fire often measured in terms of time of withstanding a standard test fire."

The question is what did you mean. The building withstood its contents being on fire for some hours, did it not?

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Foster Zygote

I'd intended to comment on this, but forgot.



Vixen, could you please tell us how you think welding actually works?

Right. My comment was within a very specific context, which was to do with obtaining the same deformations in a piece of steel (of a ship's bow thickness) as that of deformations caused by an explosives event (high velocity impact at over 700°C) which could not be replicated by mechanical means or by using a blow torch, but could only be artificially created in a laboratory. Talking about the quality and standard of deformation in metallurgy.

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by Vixen

If a building is in uncontrollable fire, then the police and firefighters have no idea what type of car caused the blaze, other than a CCTV shot and information from the presumed driver, who, according to urban myth, was in a hurry to catch a plane to an important meeting and was only arrested on his return.

The authorities have no idea what happened except for all the witness statements and all the corroborating video recordings. I guess it's just a mystery.

[GlennB]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Nope. According to this lady from Wexford, the floor collapse happened almost immediately.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d71cb83e_z.jpgScreenshot 2023-11-09 172057 by Username Vixen, on Flickr

It is a screen shot as the link seems a bit dodgy.

That contains no indication of when they first saw the fire, nor for how long they were watching. How do you get from that to "collapse happened almost immediately"?

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by Andy_Ross

It has already been confirmed by the fire service that it was a diesel car.

I just saw this, completely by accident, and was reminded of this Two Ronnies sketch:

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

The Man Who Repeats Things

[MarkCorrigan]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Right. My comment was within a very specific context, which was to do with obtaining the same deformations in a piece of steel (of a ship's bow thickness) as that of deformations caused by an explosives event (high velocity impact at over 700°C) which could not be replicated by mechanical means or by using a blow torch, but could only be artificially created in a laboratory. Talking about the quality and standard of deformation in metallurgy.

Not only does this not answer the question asked, it's also a straight up lie. You claimed 700°C could not be replicated outside a lab. No qualifiers, no nothing. It was only after people started mocking this obvious idiocy that you attempted to warp your boneheaded statement into something far more specific to prevent yourself from being laughably wrong. It's not working Vixen. We were there for the initial incident. We remember it, so attempting to lie about it isn't going to work.

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by Vixen

There are youtube videos which explain how cheap and easy it can be to convert an ICE car to hybrid or an EV

I already said EV conversion is a cottage industry. EVs are not relevant to the Luton fire.

Now, which video shows a car being converted to a hybrid?

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by Vixen

He is said to have dashed off.

Has the fire chief confirmed this?

[Disbelief]

Originally Posted by Vixen

But the fire brigade were there within eight minutes. What was the problem in putting out a simple electrical fire in a diesel car?

Nobody is disputing 'a car burns intensely'.


I notice you have tried to introduce a new strawman in your last sentence.

Because you do not know how many cars were involved in the fire by the time they arrived. From your post, you are insinuating that there was only one car on fire at the time.

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Nope. According to this lady from Wexford, the floor collapse happened almost immediately.

Nothing in your screenshot says it happened 'almost immediately'. You're just making stuff up.

[Jack by the hedge]

Originally Posted by Vixen

But the fire brigade were there within eight minutes. What was the problem in putting out a simple electrical fire in a diesel car?

'There' was three storeys below the location of the fire.

How many minutes until they began any actual firefighting efforts?

[MarkCorrigan]

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

Nothing in your screenshot says it happened 'almost immediately'. You're just making stuff up.

Heaven forfend!

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Vixen

Nope. According to this lady from Wexford, the floor collapse happened almost immediately.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d71cb83e_z.jpgScreenshot 2023-11-09 172057 by Username Vixen, on Flickr

It is a screen shot as the link seems a bit dodgy.

Yet another of your reliable sources.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Vixen

He is said to have dashed off.

Originally Posted by Jack by the hedge

Has the fire chief confirmed this?

No need! "He is said..." is yet another of Vixen's undisputed reliable sources.

[GlennB]

Originally Posted by Vixen

But the fire brigade were there within eight minutes. What was the problem in putting out a simple electrical fire in a diesel car?

Nobody is disputing 'a car burns intensely'.

Arriving within 8 minutes doesn't mean the fire is being fought after 8 minutes. Preparing to start actively fighting a fire takes a fair while, especially if the fire is on an upper floor. There was an example upthread where a car was burning on the street. The fire engine arrived and it was still some minutes before a hose was deployed and water started flowing, even in that much more straightforward environment.

But you know all this. The mystery is why the hell you feel the need to persist with such bilge.

[JayUtah]

Originally Posted by Vixen

My comment was within a very specific context...

It was in a context you clearly don't understand.

Quote:

Talking about the quality and standard of deformation in metallurgy.

Which you admit you know nothing about, and it shows. Your ignorance of the principles involved led you to claim temperatures above 700 °C could not be achieved outside the laboratory and that welding torches could not melt steel.

Your ongoing ignorance of how the natural world behaves is very much on display in this thread as well. For example, you seem to think heat fails concrete by melting and softening it. And you can't seem to wrap your head around how fires spread. This is why armchair detectives are worse than useless.

I too would like to know how you think welding works.

[Foster Zygote]

Originally Posted by Vixen

But the fire brigade were there within eight minutes. What was the problem in putting out a simple electrical fire in a diesel car?

Nobody is disputing 'a car burns intensely'.


I notice you have tried to introduce a new strawman in your last sentence.

Please justify your eight minutes claim.

The report was that the fire service arrived about ten minutes after the initial call to 999. We have no idea how many minutes it took from the start of the fire to the first 999 call.

And even if they had arrived exactly eight minutes after the fire started, the A5 video proves that a car can be fully engulfed in flames in the space of just a few minutes.

Do you think that firefighters arriving on scene just run full tilt into a fire without carefully assessing the situation? It's not a cartoon like Paw Patrol. They don't just speed straight into the garage with the pumper truck and douse the fire with water. Even getting the hoses deployed and hooked up to the water source takes a few minutes.

As desperately as you want to deny it, the diesel Land Rover had plenty of time to erupt into a fire capable of spreading to other vehicles in the garage.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by phiwum

Vixen, do diesel hybrids put out less black, sooty smoke than diesel internal combustion engines when they are on fire? Whatever else might be burning in a hybrid, there's still roughly the same amount of diesel burning, right?

So if the lack of black smoke is an issue for the hypothesis that it is a diesel ICE vehicle, it's equally an issue for the hypothesis that it's a diesel hybrid, no?

The fire in the photograph appears to be confined to the front left of the car and towards the lower part. There is no smoke coming from the engine at the front or the fuel tank at the rear. The flames are orange and red with the grey smoke that is a classic of a lithium-ion fire. The driver was unable to extinguish it with a couple of fire extinguishers which would normally do the job, or failing that by the fire brigade who arrived very promptly - 'within eight minutes'.

So what happened here? I likely scenario IMV having looked at all of the possible facts available so far is that a thermal runaway started in a lithium-ion battery situated towards the front of the vehicle. This is uncontainable by ordinary means as it self-oxygenates, so the driver abandoned his attempts. A burning lithium-ion battery is not only intensely hot (up to 2,000°) - it is the size of a suitcase and is packed with cells - but it gives of projectiles of intense heat. A shrapnel from this lithium battery fire penetrated the diesel fuel tank, causing the hot vapours there, which are given off by the diesel at circa 100 °C, to ignite being within 10% of the flashpoint, causing a massive fireball and it is this fireball of intense heat together with the lithium-ion battery fire that caused rapid spread to other vehicles and causing the concrete and steel rebars to buckle, somehow causing the vehicles in the next roof top level to ignite, being completely open-air and fanned by windy weather. The evidence for this are witnesses describing flame being 'thrown'.

Lithium-ion fires throw flames and become so hot, it explains why the floor beneath Vehicle Zero collapsed from the heat intensity. In addition, lithium-ion battery fires give off extremely noxious fumes and this explains why five personnel were immediately stricken by inhalation difficulties and the entire fire brigade having to withdraw from the building all together. If you recall, at Liverpool they were able to fight the fire from the stairwells for nigh on two hours before giving up. At Luton a major incident was declared just half an hour after their arrival.

[Vixen]

Originally Posted by GlennB

Traficom is Finnish. You can't get all those details online in the UK.

Obvs.