6 August 2009

Cash for clunkers: Ruin this engine, please

Robert Mueller sells chemicals for a living. Robert Lutz is an icon at General Motors Co. Both were surprised about a certain aspect of the new government plan.

Mueller received an order for sodium silicate. The compound typically goes to repel bugs or seal concrete, but this buyer’s online order form betrayed a completely different intent: “To Kill Car Engines.”

“That worried me a little, so I picked up the phone and called the gentleman,” Mueller told The Wall Street Journal. He is an owner of chemical-firm CQ Concepts Inc. in suburban Chicago.

What Mueller discovered is 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 detail in its 136-page manual for dealers: Drain the engine of oil, and replace it with two quarts of a sodium-silicate solution.

“The heat of the operating engine then dehydrates the solution leaving solid sodium silicate distributed throughout the engine’s oiled surfaces and moving parts,” said 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 Lutz, new marketing chief and renowned “car guy” at GM.

Often called liquid glass, sodium-silicate solution has been better known for being used to save motors rather than killing them: It works to stop leaks in the gaskets that seal cylinder heads to engine blocks.

For related information, go to www.isa.org/environmental.