Is the fule tank location on the 308 dangerous?

2000 miles or less a year doesn't give you much chance of that ever happening. In my case never.

 

bye bye bippy... assuming you survive the impact.

 

Many people cary a fire extinguisher inside the cab.It could give you a few extra minutes to get out.

 

I'd rather have gas tanks on the side than have any first generation Mustang and have the top of the gas tank also serve as the trunk floor. More likely to die in a fiery wreck from being rear ended in Mustangs than by being t-boned in a 308/328.

 

??? How so?

 

You can use it to break the glass?

 

That was my thought. If the windshield wasn't busted already that's where it would go.

 

Of course, old cars are more unsafe than new cars. If this is of concern to you, sell your Ferrari and by a Volvo or something. The rest of us will continue driving the oldies, and accepting the risk. It is the differerence between "living" and merely "existing". Myself, I don't even think about it. And I also drive a Mustang with trunk floor being the top of the fuel tank.

 

I guess it depends on if you believe everything you see in the movies.

chances are your car will not go up in flames that fast after an accident but it can happen.

alot of vehicles have the fuel tank located in much the same placment as the 308/328 and a side impact can rupture the tank, but I choose not to think about what might happen to me and just live.

I made it out of combat uninjured but I know that I have a better chance of getting smoked on the road driving to the corner store so its up to you if you want to risk it.

 

Yes, but you don't have to get in a crash to catch on fire -- they seem to do that all by themselves quite often

 

Funny, I was just about to say that these cars do tend to burst into flames, but the most dangerous aspect of the tank location is that it's near the filler hose.

I second the thought that driving an old car (any old car) isn't for those who obsess over risk avoidance.

 

Wait a minute -- that's true of any car -- they're all connected!



I've heard people fretting about fuel tank location on various cars for years. I think this all started in the early 1980s, at television's peak of action shows full of cars blowing up, when Dateline or 60 Minutes rigged a Chevy Truck or Ford Pinto to explode upon impact to complain about the fuel tank location.

They have to put the tanks somewhere, and people are going to be scared no matter where it is placed. Any rear-placed tank (i.e. most cars in the past 50 years) would therefore be a risk in a rear impact.

And that would make a Porsche 911 a risk for a front impact.

And that would make many mid-engined cars (308, Esprit, Merak/Bora to name a few) plus the Jaguar XJ6 (of which a couple hundred thousand were sold), all of which have side/saddle tanks, at risk for a side impact.

In theory, then, your only truly safe car from exploding gas tank/fuel leak catching fire would be the Pontiac Fiero, which places the 10 gallon tank in the very center of the car, in the center console, between the seats. Imagine how scared people got when I had my Fiero in high school and college and told them they were sitting right next to the tank!

But oddly enough, for all these tank locations, we don't routinely hear stories about cars bursting into flames upon impact. Perhaps Dateline and all those A-Team episodes were wrong after all. Perhaps it doesn't happen all that often, and/or perhaps fuel tanks have been made well enough or mounted strategically enough that they don't burst like water balloons with every accident, even in our beloved mid-engined cars. We do hear many stories about fires, but they tend to stem from leaking fuel lines and exhausts and catalysts coming into contact with combustible materials. Anyone concerned enough to be posting in or reading this thread should go check all of their fuel lines now, and always be mindful of debris in their engine bay, parking over grass/leaves, etc.


Edit: Don't forget to check the filler neck hose.

 

Isn't that the truth. I am constantly amazed at all of the "well-serviced, frequently dealer-maintained cars" that eventually end up in my shop with all of the original fuel and vapor lines still in place, just as they left the factory 25+ years ago. In my opinion, this is and continues to be the biggest fire hazard with these cars. Folks are fooled into thinking that just becuase the cloth coverings look good, the lines are in good shape. In reality, with the advent of ethanol in the fuels, most of these cars will catch fire long before they're ever in a collision...

David

 

It's hard to make a car explode as has been proven many times in real life though it's the opposite in movies. Of course, in the movies, hand grenade explosions look like mini nuclear detonations while, at the same time, bullets aren't able to pierce a car door or a helicopter's skin though they can "pick up" and throw a person several feet.

 

Ask the Enzo driver, that took a tree in the flank in Nice......it basically doused him in flaming fuel, his gf jumped out and fled back to Russia.

Women are fickle that way.....

 

I've been hit in that type of collision, the tanks were fine.......I RARELY fill the car up to the brim, unless on the highway for long distances

 

Fuel tanks rarely catastrophically rupture during a collision.

What happens is a fuel transfer line or a hole in tank lets gas drizzle out, which then can catch fire from electrical sparks or other means, and if nobody puts it out, the car (relatively) slowly catches fire.

I believe Ford Pintos had a problem with sever rupturing of the fuel tank from rear end collisions. Most recently, it has been Ford Crown Vics that had sever ruptures from rear enders as the tank placement allowed some portion of the rear axle to carve a giant gash in the tank as it was pushed over the center axle housing.

I remember coming upon a very recent accident involving a small car on the I-10 freeway in LA back in the early 1980's. The people in the car were trying to get out, but couldn't and the car was totally engulfed in about 3-5 minutes. I get chills just thinking about that, hadn't thought of it for years.

Doug

 

The key point you're missing here is location of the tanks inside or outside of the frame rails (or structural elements of the unibody).
Cars are no longer designed with tanks behind rear axles (e.g. Crown Vic/early Mustang) or protected from impacts only by sheet metal (GM C/K pickup). Tanks are typically located inside the door sills, often under rear seats or trunks and split tanks aren't uncommon, but they all have strong structure between them and an oncoming car, and I don't know what crash testing was present back in olden days, but now cars are hit from multiple angles and analyzed for leakage or potential leakage. Even in this age of computer aided engineering, crash test simulation is still a hot area for advancement to improve fidelity and reduce the number of actual prototypes used for crash testing. It's not my area, but I've still been aware of many design changes resulting from crash testing related to fuel system integrity.

 

Not missing any point. Well aware of placement of fuel tanks and the structural/safety reasons behind it. One need not be an engineer to know or understand that.

You missed my point. To reiterate: It never was a big issue in real life (point 1), and that people will freak out no matter where the tank is (point 2). Deteriorated fuel system components and exhaust/catalyst issues are a far greater risk of fire in this context (point 3).

The mid-engined cars I named as well as the XJ6 all have side tanks that are not well-protected; yet none have a reputation for it being a problem. On the other hand, they (308s and Esprits especially) have been known to burst into flames for other reasons (old fuel system components and catalysts). Please, find me a case where one of the cars I mentioned burned -- or even had a rupture -- from an accident related to impact in the area with the fuel tank.

And please explain your comment about the tank being near the filler hose -- was that a joke?

 

Realize that the same tank location, design, construction, and vehicle layout was used up until 1989 with the last of the 328's. And, this configuration passed DOT safety and crash test requirements all along the way ---- so, I would say it is at least as good as any other car on the road from the same era.

That said, certainly newer Ferraris made improvements in fuel tank safety as DOT standards have increased over time.

To be sure, many 308's have indeed gone up in flames over the years from various causes, but I am not aware of any ever catching fire as a direct result of a collision. Entities such as the DOT and NTSB keep records of such accidents as they can be associated with manufacuter liability and general public safety. So, if you were so inclined (and had many hours to squander wading through the bureacracy of those pin-heads), an inquiry to the appropriate office could tell you whether or not the fuel tanks on the 308 have ever been an issue in collisions in the USA.

 

On the lighter side, these tanks are definitely a bit "dangerous" in terms of when you are removing / reinstalling them ---- a guaranteed knuckle-bashing affair

 

I'd say this means that everything met the same minimum standard.
The latest police Crown Vics have composite tank shields and onboard fire suppression systems and survive 70 mph rear end collisions without fire. They meet the same minimum standards as anything else, but that's no guarantee that everything that meets those standards is equally capable...

 

Fuel storage isn't the same for "most cars in the past 50 years". That's why you can't fill up your car by flipping the license plate down anymore. It's been made safer since that era. I don't hear people freaking out about fuel tanks on... anything but old Mustangs and Crown Vics.
And I have no interest whatsoever in finding examples of whatever types of cars that burned because of an accident. I don't know what their fuel storage system was like, and don't care to go research such.

I disagree that people are going to be scared no matter where a fuel tank is placed, and offered reasons that people don't need to be. I'm not interested in some internet pissing match with challenges and counterpoints, or else I'd ask you to provide evidence of people being worried about the location of the fuel tank on any car designed in the last 15 years (excluding, of course, trial lawyers ).

Relax, I know the comment about the proximity of the tank to filler hose wasn't a great joke, but, yes, it was.

 

That was what I meant ---- though my phrasing was a bit too ambiguous. There are no tests to quantify or rank fuel tank crash safety beyond the "pass / fail" criteria, so it's not possible to accurately say which cars are safer / less safer in this regard. Certainly, if a particular car demonstrates a history of multiple fuel tank related fires from accidents, one could reasonably postulate that model car is NOT one of the "safer ones" in that regard.

The old Ford Pinto was clearly an example of such a car. For those of you too young to remember, the Pinto had several occurrences of "exploding" during rear impact collisions back in the late 70's. This was proven forensically in court, and Ford was forced to pay out substantial damages to victims involved in the ensuing class action suit.