New car smell: Intoxicating or toxic?

**GrnMachine** · #1 10-22-2009, 03:58 AM

New car smell: Intoxicating or toxic?

Ahhh, that lovely ‘new car’ smell we always covet. Take a deep breath, get a good noseful. Ever wondered why new cars smell the way they do?

That’ll be a cheeky ****tail of bromine, chlorine, lead, arsenic, mercury and other such wonderful chemicals and elements linked with allergies, birth defects, impaired learning, liver toxicity and cancer.
For the second year running, HealthyCar.org has made a study of toxic substances in over 200 new cars (2008 and 2009 models) and 60 children’s car seats. The worst offender on wheels is the Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GT. Perhaps we should be thankful that this convertible isn’t a family car. The goody four-tires of the bunch is the Acura RDX (an SUV -- how inconvenient, given the current climate).

Of course, these chemicals don’t get there by accident. For example, bromine is used as a flame retardant. And while this latest study finds that “far too many companies have not yet phased out ... dangerous chemicals,” the good news is that several car makers have cleaned up their acts somewhat from last year, with General Motors showing the most improvement out of the Big Three. The average child seat is also 28% less toxic than 12 months ago.
The tests were carried out using a portable X-ray fluorescence device that can determine an item’s chemical composition within 60 seconds.

**GrnMachine** · #2 10-22-2009, 03:58 AM

Is your new car making you sick?

For the sake of your health you should give recently purchased vehicles a good airing.
It used to be that buying a new car was a totally positive experience. That was until somebody started testing the interiors for toxins.
It turns out the new-car smell you experience is the result of the factory-fresh, high-tech materials in the seats and on the dash undergoing off-gassing.
This process releases chemicals and allergens, collectively known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The phenomenon is not car-specific. Your bed linen, mattress, kitchen benchtops, walls and carpet will all create a haze as their chemical composites react with daily life. Even your plastic drink bottle could be doing it.
A 2001 CSIRO report investigating the effects of these compounds found buildings with concentrations of more than 10 milligrams per cubic metre caused negative sensory effects on the occupants, a situation known as sick building syndrome. The report found there were concentrations of up to 64 milligrams per cubic metre in new cars and concluded a range of compounds were capable of causing symptoms from itches and blotches to estrogen-induced infertility.
Bromide, for instance, is an effective and easy-to-use fire suppressor used throughout a typical car interior on seats and carpet. One common retardant known as deca is a bio-accumulator that collects and lurks in the human body, possibly affecting brain and thyroid function. Fully known as deca-brominated diphenyl ether, the substance was banned in the EU in mid-2008 with a US ban looking set to follow.
Chromium is another clandestine inclusion if you upgrade to leather. Commonly used in tanning to soften hides and stabilise colour, it is an allergen shown to cause infertility in tests on rats. A 2005 Japanese study of 101 Japanese cars found greater air pollution in luxury cars, which the study attributed to extensive interior leather trim.
A problem with off-gassing is you can't necessarily assess its brew. The smell of a new car could be phthalate plasticisers or just strong cleaning agents, either benign or nasty, depending on the mix. A film of vapour on the windscreen is a visual clue to high VOCs but the detail of what that particular concoction is doing to you and your passengers is impossible to glean from your owner's manual or local dealer. Where food products list their additives in detail, your vehicle will list the "made in" without the "made of".
The good news is that a little bit of air and “breathing time” for your car can make it almost better. About 80 per cent of off-gassing occurs in the first three months of a car's life.
The CSIRO study and a more recent US study on VOCs in vehicles found off-gassing is exacerbated by heat and that compound levels are at their relative lowest when the vehicle is in motion with the driver's window half down. So, don't seal for speed until your first service.
Park the newbie in the sun with the windows slightly down as often as possible. Crank up the air-conditioning to fast-forward the curing process. Or reap the health rewards of a used car in which some other punter has borne the brunt.
In a handy boon for car buyers, a US consumer website, HealthyCar.org, extensively tests that country's top-selling cars for the five most common and most toxic chemicals and supplies the information free.
Even better news is that some manufacturers are taking proactive steps to switch to natural resins, organic-based textiles and alternative leather treatments. Just as consumers have forced the market of genetically unmodified and chemically untainted food to grow, we can force a change in the way our cars are fitted, finished and labelled. And all-natural interiors go hand in hand with the new, planet-friendlier powertrains.
Pedestrians have forced fundamental changes in vehicle engineering design. Form-wise, we lost our sleek bonnets, sci-fi pop-up headlights and our bonnet bling. At the tail-end, reduced emissions let the punter breathe easy.
Ironically, many of the makes that take such responsible care of the ambulators may leave their drivers warm and fuzzy for all the wrong reasons. Let's hope the fundamental changes rocking the car industry include growing the practice of using safer foams, fibres and trim. In the meantime, a new-found concern for your vehicular airspace is the perfect excuse to restore that V8 muscle car selflessly airing itself in the shed

**GrnMachine** · #3 10-22-2009, 03:58 AM

German scientists discover alluring aroma is really only hazardous to your wealth

Go ahead, fill your lungs with that new car smell. After exhaustive tests, researchers in Germany have concluded there's no evidence of any health harm.
The scientists didn't explain, however, why so many people derive such pleasure from inhaling alkanes, alkybenzenes and o,m,p-xylenes.
Collectively known as volatile organic compounds, those are the kinds of chemicals that impart the distinctive aroma of plastic, leather and newness to a car that's just rolled out of the showroom.
Collectively, the concentrations of these compounds were found to be nine times higher in new cars than old.
German researchers compared the air inside one such new car, with just 8 kilometres on the clock, to that from a three-year-old car of the same unspecified make, which had racked up more than 100,000 kilometres.
Both had metallic silver finishes and black leather interiors. They were placed under halogen lamps inside a lab so the interior temperature reached 65C, to simulate a car being parked in direct sunshine. The scientists called this a "worse-case scenario."
An intricate experimental set-up let the team at Munich's Technical University monitor the temperature and humidity inside the vehicles and suck air out for gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, which is the equivalent of Formula One racing when it comes to analysis of gaseous compounds.
In total, the research identified more than 40 chemical compounds that a driver and passenger would have inhaled in the super-hot air of a new car, sucking in 12 to 18 breaths a minute.
But none of the chemicals produced any evidence of toxicity when tested on the standard lab cell cultures made from humans, Chinese hamsters and mice, the scientists report in the current issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a research journal published by the American Chemical Society.
Lead researcher Jeroen Buters and colleagues also pointed out that concentrations of these chemicals would almost certainly be lower in real life, since passengers would open windows or turn on air conditioning after getting into a 65C car interior.
Concentrations of most of the chemical compounds plunged over the three years, but two kinds, called aldehydes and ketones, were still around at two-thirds of the levels initially measured in the new car. The researchers noted that both are found in cleaning agents and also in urban air pollution, so vehicle interior levels could have been replenished by either of those routes. "Our investigations indicated no apparent health hazard of parked motor vehicle indoor air," the study concludes.

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