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Old 02-06-2008, 04:26 PM
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Default Re: In the trunk Fix a Flat...WARNING

My apologies to Town Fair Tire. Fix a Flat has been withdrawn since Feb 1999. because it contains a chemical more explosive than gasolin. DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT FORMULA MB/CHRYSLER USES or do we have a bomb in our trunks? Also found theautochannel.com was this article:

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas--Jan. 30, 2001--A woman who was maimed when a can of Patch-a-Flat exploded said today that Dollar General, the largest retailer of the product, "has a bomb on its shelves" and urged the store to stop selling the product. P. In June 1998, Melissa Elizondo, then 18, lost her right eye and almost lost a leg when a can of Patch-a-Flat, used for repairing flat tires, exploded while in use. Robert Perez, then 19, received severe burns and broken hands in the explosion, making it impossible for him to continue his work on an oil rig.
On Saturday, the couple was awarded $80 million by a jury who found Patch-a-Flat unreasonably dangerous and defectively designed and that Tradco, which manufactures Patch-a-Flat, was liable for selling an unsafe product.
"Patch-a-Flat is terribly dangerous," Elizondo said, speaking from in front of the Dollar General Store at Parkdale Plaza at 4100 S. Staples Street in Corpus Christi, Texas. "It is less expensive than similar products only because it is so dangerous. Dollar General must pull this bomb off its shelves. If they don't, more people will be injured. More people will be killed. And Dollar General will be to blame." She also read from a letter she has written to Cal Turner, Jr., CEO of Dollar General Corporation, urging him to pull the product.
Elizondo's attorney, Anthony Constant, noted that Fix-a-Flat, a more popular flammable tire sealant, was withdrawn from the market voluntarily by Pennzoil in 1999 because it posed a danger to consumers and replaced it with a non-explosive formula. Other similar flammable tire sealants have also been withdrawn.
Safer, non-flammable products like AirUp and RepairSafe are now available, Constant said. "But those non-flammable tire sealants and inflators cost a couple of dollars more, and Dollar General targets lower-income customers."
Dollar General operates approximately 5,000 stores nationwide. There are eight Dollar General stores in Corpus Christi. P. Anthony Constant is a partner in the law firm of Constant and Vela, which also represents the family of Earl Shinhoster, former acting executive director of the NAACP, in their suit against Bridgestone-Firestone over a defective Firestone tire which led to Shinhoster's death last summer in a Ford Explorer rollover in Macon County, Ala.

Pennzoil-Quaker State Company Announces Withdrawal of Its Fix-A-Flat(R) Tire Inflator Products.

From: PR Newswire Date: February 18, 1999 More results for: fix a flat tire repair pennzoil withdrawal | Copyright information COPYRIGHT 1999 PR Newswire Association, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.
HOUSTON, Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennzoil-Quaker State Company (NYSE: PZL) announced today that it is voluntarily withdrawing all of its Fix-A-Flat(R) tire inflator products. The company is immediately withdrawing the products because it recently learned of a tire safety issue involving practices that are inconsistent with safe automotive tire repair procedures and contrary to explicit warnings on each Fix-A-Flat(R) automotive tire inflator product label. Reformulated Fix-A-Flat(R) tire inflator products will be on store shelves nationwide within a few weeks.
In rare instances, an explosion may occur if a tire repaired with the Fix-A-Flat(R) tire inflator product is ...

Ever wonder what's in fix-a-flat? The February 2007 issue of wired tells you!
"Amorphous polyolefin - In the can, this shapeless mass of polymeric olefins (low-density plastics like poly-propylene and poly-ethylene) remains dissolved in the heavy aromatic naphtha. But once Fix-a-Flat is sprayed into the tire, the plastics coat the inner surface and plug the leak. Then the sticky aromatic resins keep them in place. The TFE dries the resins and poly-olefins, and you drive to the nearest service station to get your tire repaired. " - More... & also check out the "Big Questions" Wiki from Wired, lots of good questions everyone is asking in science.
Update: Make reader Rostov writes in - "You should also mention that naphtha, a relative of gasoline, is highly flammable. Mixed with the air in the tire, it can explode. Many tire repair facilities refuse to work on tires that have been patched with fix-a-flat. Don't ever take a tire with fix-a-flat to be repaired without informing the workers, as it can be dangerous."
 

Last edited by Nightrider; 02-06-2008 at 04:42 PM.
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