I had a friend who had 3 cars burst into flames inside of two years.
It was the strangest thing, engines caught on fire out of the blue. Admittedly, he was pretty poor (we all were at that time) and his cars were old beaters, but that didn't explain how three different cars could have their engines set on fire out of the blue in such a short time period.
The strangeness of this situation finally revealed itself when I witnessed him checking the oil on his car. It was low, (they all burned oil) and he had some on hand to top it up.
I watched him open a bottle and dump it into the intake, spilling copious amounts before getting it settled in.
He was basting his engines in oil. No one ever taught him to use a funnel or told him he might want to clean up spills like this.
When you make something idiot proof, the universe makes a better idiot.
Not OP, but I'm going to guess confusion between "intake" and the hole in the valve cover where oil goes. I say this because I imagine the result of pouring it into the intake is a non-starting car, not a fire. Cars don't run on 10W-40.
Sure they do. Not very well, and you mix it with gas, but they will run. 2 cycle engines sometimes run 16:1 ratios of gas to oil (an engine old enough to run 16:1 was speced before modern two stroke oils and so they meant regular engine oil - though oils then were very different from modern engine oils). Up until the 1980s a car with more than 70,000 miles on it could be assumed to burn a quart every few hundred miles.
I've never tried it, but I think my 1930 all-fuel tractor could run on 10w-40. I've run it on "it used to be gasoline 4 years ago", ethanol, and diesel.
Well the comment about it "burning a lot of oil" could also be attributed to splashing some oil in the air intake. And it might eventually leak somewhere hot enough to burn.
I agree odds are intake means... oil orifice in this case. But I figure we're already in car abuse land might as well see how deep the rabbit intake goes.
Ironically, if the OP had used straight 30w or 20-50w it would have run out of the car slower causing the car to take longer to catch fire because of less buildup of spilled oil.
I kinda doubt that. Automotive oil will cook off long before it ignites. You need to introduce liquid oil to a red hot object to get flame as a result. The chemical properties that lend themselves to oil that lives a long time in an engine or transmission also result in really high ignition points. If spilling oil could reliably cause a fire you'd see OEMs casting drip rails into things in order to prevent paths direct from leaky gasket to exhaust components.
I understand your doubt, but I assure you that I did not come onto the internet to lie today.
After I saw this I pulled him aside and asked to take a look at his engine and there was a thick layer of baked on oil on the side with the oil filler, and that oil was contaminated with thick clumps of dust and dirt from a general lack of maintenance, which in retrospect might have acted like a wick.
It took a full can of degreaser spray and a lot of vigorous wiping to remove the majority of it, and after doing that along with the exhortation to use a funnel when adding oil, the car engine did not burst into flame again. (He had become very capable in quickly detecting and extinguishing engine fires before they caused enough damage to the vehicle to disable it)
That car lasted a good two years before he wrecked and totaled it.
It was the strangest thing, engines caught on fire out of the blue. Admittedly, he was pretty poor (we all were at that time) and his cars were old beaters, but that didn't explain how three different cars could have their engines set on fire out of the blue in such a short time period.
The strangeness of this situation finally revealed itself when I witnessed him checking the oil on his car. It was low, (they all burned oil) and he had some on hand to top it up.
I watched him open a bottle and dump it into the intake, spilling copious amounts before getting it settled in.
He was basting his engines in oil. No one ever taught him to use a funnel or told him he might want to clean up spills like this.
When you make something idiot proof, the universe makes a better idiot.