Just wondering. I'm considering buying one.

Story: Months and months ago I was driving our secondary/back-up car, a '92 Ford Tempo, because my '97 Chevy Astro took a dump. Well get about 40 miles from home to go somewhere real awesome to eat (Mongolian Barbeque) and my girlfriend goes "Whats that smell?" I jokingly said "The car, its probably gonna light on fire or blow up" Well we get into the parking lot and we notice a little smoke coming from the hood. I get out, still not really too concerned until...I hear "Oh wow, it's smoking real bad on this side..OH MY GOD ITS ON FIRE!" So aparently my caliper had seized and it had been grabbing the rotor for the past 5 miles, thus lighting the brakes on the front passenger side on fire. I threw my head underneath the car to locate the fire, and thank god for Iced Tea, because thats what I used to put out the fire.

And then I went to look at xBs and bought a tC.

If you own one, where did you mount it/put it? I was thinking about bolting it in that cardboard/carpeted removable trunk floor, in the middle up against the rear seats or maybe on the back of one of the rear seats.

 

It would be wise to carry one, even if its not for your car, who knows.. me i dont carry but will soon.

 

I don't carry any extra cargo. Things like spare tires and fire extinguishers are just dead weight, and they also move around to cause extra noise in the back of the car. I immediately got rid of my spare wheel and jack, and the packing material which surrounded it. Reduced the weight of my car by a good 30lbs.

Really, you won't need a fire extinguisher with a new car. I would never even think about carrying one in my car. Cars don't just catch on fire - they give you lots of warning signs. If my brake caliper had decided to grab the rotor by itself, I would know about it after a few seconds, not after a few miles. But since this is a Toyota, that won't ever happen anyway.

 

^^ I would agree that you wouldnt need to carry a fire extinguisher especially on a new car like tc or xb and its very rare for cars to be on fire. But carrying a fire extinguisher could be handy in rare situations and a small one is not that heavy... I dont know bout not carrying any jack or spare to free some 30 lbs, to me its not worth the risk.. even if its a 100 lbs i would still carry it. Why im considering a carrying a fire extnguisher is because once i saw a car on fire once on a prking lot and a guy with a FE in his truck saved his truck from fire..

 

What are you gonna do when you get a flat? Call AAA?

 

There was a vehicle fire at our autox event this past weekend - ironically not one of the competing cars but some other random car in the mall parking lot. Of course since we keep fire extinguishers at all of the worker posts, a few people from our event ran over to put the fire out. Of course this was some like 98 Blazer or something of that nature. Not a new car. And didn't look like anything that was well taken care of either.

As for a fire extinguisher in the tC... well, if you can mount it somewhere out of the way and inconspicuous, why not? Not that you should hide it or anything since you want to remember it's there if you need it. But I hate when it's mounted somewhere in the open in the middle of everything to show it off - there's a Civic around me that has one mounted on the passenger side A Pillar... It's a fire extinguisher... not some fancy part you want everyone to know you have to show it off...

I'd consider securing one in my trunk somewhere... but that would be about it. Not really very high on my list though.

 

I'm all for weight saving, but....come on. a few extra pounds for the sake of self reliance is worth it. Also my mom was driving a car that was about 4-5 years old at the time, hit a rock, split a fuel line, car caught fire, burned to the ground on the freeway. If she had a FE she could have saved her car...maybe.