Way
before my time there were these people who went around the country selling their
wares, kind of like the predecessors of traveling salesmen. The only thing was
they sold elixirs, tonics, and all kinds of snake oil. They were flim-flam
artists and they carried their booty in satchels made from pieces of carpet
folded up and tied to a piece of rope. Hence the name “Carpet Bagger.”
While they are no longer around,
their successors are still on the planet and they still sell snake oil—only in a
modern form. As a mechanic I have seen many, many con artists pushing their
wares on unsuspecting motorists. Everything from green gas pills you drop in the
tank to a device that is supposed to introduce liquid platinum into the engine.
I never could figure out how they made platinum—an inert metal—into a liquid.
And over the years I have
witnessed countless versions of the fuel-line magnets. It seems that every time
the price of fuel jumps up, another version of the fuel-line magnet hits the
market. The whole principle of the magnet is bogus. You attach a magnet to the
fuel line or install a pipe containing a magnet to fuel line. The magnet is
supposed to give the fuel a charge and the magnetically charged-up fuel is
supposed to vaporize more efficiently. Right!
Probably my first experience with
a bogus sham was when a guy showed up at my shop with plans he had bought for a
200 miles-per-gallon carburetor. He saw an ad in the back of a magazine for this
amazing patented idea that would make your car get 200 miles per gallon. The
poor fool had actually paid $100 for the plans to build it and wanted me to
install it in his car.
I looked at the plans and it was
total nonsense—tomfoolery at best. The principle was to preheat the gasoline so
that it would be able to vaporize more efficiently. The plans instructed you to
construct a heat exchanger from a coil of metal tubing placed inside a metal
container. The container was connected to a heat stove from the exhaust pipe and
was supposed to preheat the gasoline.
In reality all this would do is
make the gasoline in the tube to turn into bubbles, thereby causing the engine
to vapor lock. Anyone who drag races knows that the exact opposite is what is
sought after for improved performance. Some performance drivers actually run the
fuel line through a bucket of ice to cool off the gasoline and make it more
dense—not less. Higher density provides more fuel and improved power.
Mercedes-Benz at one time had a setup where they used the cold created by Freon
in a small heat exchanger in order to cool the fuel.
Then there was the “Ring of Fire”
spark plug. This looked like a decent concept, but the problem was in the
execution. Instead of just having one ground electrode extending out from the
shell of the plug, it had four. The idea was to provide four different ground
electrodes for the spark to arc to instead of just one, guaranteeing a much more
robust spark. The problem was the metal used to construct the center electrode
was too soft and the plugs only lasted a short while.
Speaking of hotter spark, over the
years I have seen a number of different companies market devices to “improve
combustion” by making a hotter spark. The claims were always the same—more
power, faster starting, and better gas mileage. But they were all just
variations of the same theme. Increase the gap required for the spark to jump,
and Viola—you have a hotter spark.
Some of them were devices that you
put on top of the spark plug. Cut one open and all you’ll find inside is an air
gap between the input and output connectors. Some were spark plugs that
contained an internal air gap. They are all bogus.
Then there were zero resistance
spark plug wires. Anyone who’s into racing knows that solid-core spark plug
wires deliver more spark energy into the spark plugs, so the snake oil salesmen
were on the right track. The problem is that normal spark plug wires have a
certain amount of resistance in order to reduce AM radio interference. If you
install them on your normal street car, though, you’ll get terrible
interference. So, low resistance wires are only for race cars.
And then along came Doctor Jacobs
and his “Energy Team” spark plug wires and ignition system. The wires were low
resistance, but not enough to cause radio interference. But, like so many other
newfangled things, they weren’t adequately tested and would barely make it for
50,000 miles before burning up on one end.
Oh yes, they did come with a
lifetime guarantee. And yes, they were happy to exchange the burnt wire for a
new one. Only you had to pay shipping and the replacement distributor cap was on
your nickel. Then Dr. Jacobs retired and sold the company. The new owner would
no longer honor the guarantee, and that expensive lifetime guarantee got
relegated to the circular file. Can you say “Flim-Flam Man”?
Two customers recently asked me to
install Andy Granatelli brand Spark Plug Wires in their cars. The first one was
a Buick and then a few months later another customer had me install a set on a
Jeep Cherokee. The principle was the same as the Jacobs wires, only these wires
had zero resistance. They were solid-core wires just like you install on race
cars.
But what about the radio
interference?
Well, these
wires had some kind of special magnetic ring that slipped over each end of the
wires. The installer was to make sure that one ring is installed near the
beginning of the wire and the other ring near the end of the wire. At first I
was skeptical, but apparently it worked. The wires caused no problems with radio
reception. And the owner of the Buick reported an increase of 2 miles per
gallon.
Not a week after I installed the
second set on the Jeep Cherokee, the owner called me up and said his
transmission refused to shift. Then he coasted over to the side of the road and
called a tow truck. By the time the tow truck arrived, the transmission
miraculously fixed itself. He wanted me to look it over to see if I could find a
loose connection of something.
While I was test driving the Jeep,
the transmission went into limp-home— stuck in second gear. Remembering the
“miracle cure” that happened to the customer, I cycled the key to off, waited a
few minutes, and it started up and shifted fine. Something was making the
powertrain control module go into limp-mode. Just for grins, I threw a stock set
of spark plug wires back on the engine and the problem never occurred again.
When the
Buick owner called to tell me his transmission was shifting funny, I was
immediately suspicious. Funny, he had driven the car for almost 8,000 miles
before its transmission started acting up. And again I installed a stock set of
spark plug wires and the transmission shifted normally again. But I wasn’t done
with the owner of the Buick and its problems. There were some serious
repercussions.
The Buick owner was meticulous
with his car’s service and told me that the transmission started shifting a
little funny when he was several thousand miles from home—and that he had to
drive it home as the problem got worse and worse. By the time he dropped the car
off at my shop, the transmission was banging into gear and shifting into the
next higher gear at less than 1,000 RPM. It truly looked like a transmission
problem.
Apparently those Andy Granatelli
wires had lost their ability to quell the electromagnetic interference they
created and somehow were confusing the computer. And the thing that made it even
stranger was that it took almost 8,000 miles for the problem to rear its ugly
head. And if it hadn’t been for my previous experience with the Jeep, I might
have mistakenly had the transmission rebuilt only to find out the problem was
still there!
As I said, this guy is a stickler
for proper maintenance. For example, he sampled his motor oil at every oil
change so he could send it off to be analyzed. Well, he was very upset when the
oil analysis reports subsequent to the Andy Granatelli bugaboo showed engine
bearing wear. Apparently the misfire, lugging, and banging into gear beat up the
main bearings in his engine. But that’s not the end of it.
A few months later he was once
again several thousand miles away when the check engine light started flashing
and the Buick had to be towed to a garage. This time it cost him an overnight
stay at a local motel, the cost of the tow, and a new coil pack. Apparently
those Andy Granatelli “hotter” spark plug wires stressed one of the coils—the
one with the shortest wires connected to it—and fried it.
Just last week, another customer
came in with this diesel fuel additive that’s supposed to increase engine
lubricity and make it get 30% better fuel mileage. Give me a break!
The Lessons of this story
§ If
it’s not broke—don’t fix it.
§ There
is no such thing as a free lunch.
§ If
it sounds too good to be true, It probably is.
§ If
it has a magnet in it, don’t be attracted by it.
