The Scent Of A Mitsubishi… Can Be Deadly

From the Ecology Center in Michigan comes a whole new way to create Top Ten Lists: simply measure, and rank the potential for harm of, chemical compounds in automotive interiors. It’s hard to say how impartial or respectable they are — nota bene that one of their board members is a current Ford employee — but their lists of best and worst automotive interiors should be of interest to anyone who wonders what, exactly, the “new car smell” is. It also offers a potential answer to a question which has flummoxed TTAC readers for some time now…

According to the EcoCenter folks,

Over 200 of the most popular 2011- and 2012-model vehicles were tested for chemicals that off-gas from parts such as the steering wheel, dashboard, armrests and seats. These chemicals contribute to “new car smell” and a variety of acute and long-term health concerns. Since the average American spends more than 1.5 hours in a car every day, toxic chemical exposure inside vehicles can be a major source of indoor air pollution…

Chemicals of primary concern include: bromine (associated with brominated flame retardants); chlorine (indicating the presence of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC and plasticizers); lead; and heavy metals. Such chemicals have been linked to a wide range of health problems such as allergies, birth defects, impaired learning, liver toxicity, and cancer. Automobiles are particularly harsh environments for plastics, as extreme air temperatures of 192 F and dash temperatures up to 248 F can increase the concentration of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s) and break other chemicals down into more toxic substances.

TTACers with finely-honed automotive stereotype sensors will note that the Top Ten List is entirely German and Japanese, while the worst olfactory offenders seem to hail from Hyundai/Kia, Daewoo, and Japan’s second tier of manufacturers. The Audi/VW conglomerate places one contender each in the halls of fame and shame.

Parents visiting the Healthystuff.org website will be dismayed to find that the Britax Marathon car seat, revered among sports-car dads as about the only kid seat that fits in the back of a 911 (and, indeed, is sold under the Porsche label for a ridiuclously inflated price) makes it to the list of the three most dangerously chemical-laden child carriers. Boo hiss. Bad enough I’m exposing my kid to high speeds in an aircooled relic; worse yet to poison him along the way.

For adults, on the other hand, it’s hard to make the argument that buying a new car, even an Outlander Sport, will set you on the highway to the proverbial danger zone. Surely new-car smell isn’t that dangerous. If it were, autojournalists, who have new car smell 52 weeks a year, would become Faulknerian idiots, babbling about hotels, brown cars, and free station wagons on Facebook.

Oh. Wait.

This, honestly, might explain the Scott Burgess Chrysler Sebring/200 Hate Gap, which has long puzzled students of automotive journalism. Could it be that Mr. Burgess was sound of mind and body when rolling in the convertible Sebring, with the wind in his hair whisking the dashboard poisons away, but once locked in the sulfurous interior of the 200 sedan, he was driven quite mad by the stench? We may never know.

Your humble author is also reconsidering his praises of the 2012 Kia Soul. Perhaps I was poisoned on the hoof, driven mad as a hatter while operating the thing. Or would that be mad as a hamster?