Anti Corrosion Modules

I had a car in recently that had some weird gizmo mounted. I asked the owner what it was and he said it was a newly patented device to stop, or seriously reduce, corrosion of the body shell. I was obliged to tell him, after reading the brochure, he'd just wasted a lot of money. These things were prevalent in the nineties, often promoted by US based Honda dealerships. They claim to work on a sacrificial electrode basis, like a sacrificial zinc alloy block, or block, bolted to the hull of steel ships. The latter work superbly, *BUT* they have a near infinite supply of a free electrolyte, namely the salt water the ship and anodes are immersed in.

There is no such electrolyte with a car, and the thing is total BS. Save your money.... A colleague has seen 3 other cars with similar junk recently put on them.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/counteract-electronic-rust-protection-system-0477905p.html#.VbYIDvkRXK5

A work colleague bought an "Ozone generator" for his car (off ebay naturally) which he swore by. Allegedly they're supposed to clean and purify the air. It consisted of a small box intended to be mounted under the passenger seat and connected to the cigarette lighter. The box itself had a red LED to show it was working.

He left this box on his desk at work one day, so we decided to dismantle it for him. Inside was a resistor and an LED, nothing more.

Perhaps the idea is, without the cigarette lighter operational the air is "purified" ? There are some real BS devices on Ebay! And no lack of people willing to buy them, it seems.

Reminds me of the old earthing straps you used to see hanging off the back of cars, whatever happened to them?

Well, they were sort of functional and discharged static build up so you didn't get a little tingle when you got out in your Terylene slacks off your velour seat TRIVIA WARNING: Fuel tankers use special tyres with a high graphite content to automatically and constantly drain static. Together with a mandatory earthing braid when de or re-fuelling they aid safety. Sparks and a few thousand gallons of petroleum spirit are never good.

Reminds me of the old earthing straps you used to see hanging off the back of cars, whatever happened to them?

I had a conversation about this only the other day, turns out it's the graphite content in tyres has changed, so they are actually conductive these days. Which, I realise while typing this, explains why you can suddenly start getting electric shocks off your car one day when you never used to, or vica versa - probably had new tyres fitted of a different type

-Ian

A work colleague bought an "Ozone generator" for his car (off ebay naturally) which he swore by. Allegedly they're supposed to clean and purify the air. .

That's really funny, especially as ozone is highly toxic. It like boasting of having a zyklon b canister off eBay to deodorise the carpets.