I thought it was quite ingenious myself
and I'm surprised the heat of the engine bay didn't perish the rubber.

I yearn for the days when cars were that simple. Bring back manual carbs, coils and distributors, I say. Engines of that complexity could be fixed at the roadside (with rubber bands if need be). None of this £65 to get a diagnostic when it's blindingly obvious that it's leaking boost (in my more recent case...).

It's all the Government's fault. Actually it is, as nearly all of the complexity and weight that have been added to engines in the last couple of decades have been due to emissions legislation brought in for so-called environmental (read: to appease a large section of your voters) reason. Case in point is the EGR valve. These things gum up and shorten the life of the engine. Even better is direct injection petrol engines that will be lucky to make 100k miles because the absense of fuel washing the back of valves also causes them to clog up with carbon deposits. When this happens, they'll be beyond economical repair and the whole cycle starts again. More money is spent and more resources are consumed - defeating the politicans' original claims. Add in the short lifespan of electronics in such a harsh environment and the conclusion is that cars are rapidly become disposable. With devistating consequences on the environment. And they say that politicans can only see as far ahead as the next election...
(dxg, Sun 23 Aug 2009, 22:26, 1 reply)

I was worried about perishing rubber too
But the wristband rubber bands seem to be made of some pretty stern stuff. Maybe the thickness of the rubber helped? Or maybe it wasn't entirely "natural" rubber, and the synthetic added helped?
(David CopAFeel Used to be The_Elcat - Spouting crap since 1970., Mon 24 Aug 2009, 9:17, closed)