BMW Mini Explosion, help needed

[Khaki King]

As in the title I am looking for anyone with any knowledge of Mini's exploding. There is loads of history on the net of them catching fire but I am looking for actual explosions to help with some research for a colleague. Anything would be useful.

[hyperblue]

Eh? Exploding? Unless someone used one as a car bomb, I can't see that happening!

[RKDE]

Minis don't explode in fact I don't think any modern day car will, the petrol tanks are plastic to stop things like that happening... The closest to an explosion would be a con rod coming through the side the block and that doesn't happen very often. Even any modern car on fire will not explode, things will pop like the windows etc but the fuel will just burn and the tanks are designed to split and deploy the fuel on the floor which will burn and fuel doesn't burn its the vapours.

The reason there is very little data to them exploding is because it doesn't happen, I believe if you want to find cars that explode you want the ford pinto which had a metal tank at the rear and in a rear end crash could explode or at least spill fuel everywhere which would cause a fire as the metal crumpling in the crash would set it on fire.

They do catch fire and this was caused by a static earth point on the filler though that was fixed and recalled for (2000) so only early models
The only other areas they catch fire is from the power steering pump and if the car is bumped at the front it can pinch the alternator live wire causing is to catch fire.

Edited by RKDE on Monday 8th November 09:18

[DanGT]

Even going back to the 1970s cars exploding did not happen a lot. Fires yes.

[Khaki King]

Thanks for your comments, exactly the answers I was hoping for.