You know what always kind of surprises me, religiously? The fact that we don’t worship the sun. Yes, I get that humans have worshiped the sun at various times in our history, from Apollo to Helios to Ra to Inti and Shamash and more, but it hasn’t really stuck, at least not in mainstream religions. We’ve generally moved on to more subtle and complex ideas of deities, but you’d think the sun would have more of a religious following. I mean, it’s there every single day – hell, it defines the day – it’s responsible for all life on the planet, and even though it’s 93 million miles away, it can still burn you. That all sounds pretty godlike to me! Oh, and if that’s not enough to convince, you, you need to see what it did to this Jeep.
This was something published on Reddit’s Mildly Infuriating subreddit, though I might argue this is a little beyond “mildly.” Honestly, it’s a pretty remarkable event that happened, one that relied on a series of events happening, each seemingly unrelated, but also compounding on one another to make the ideal and improbable circumstances for the end result, which was, in this case, essentially turning the sun into a laser that caused a massive amount of damage to the inside of the Jeep.
Here’s what happened, right from the Reddit post:
Okay, wait wait wait. Let’s just go through this step by step: someone brings their Jeep Wrangler into a repair shop because their power retractable roof – I’d suspect it was one of these one-touch power retractable roof setups:
Okay, so the roof was stuck open, so the shop covered it in collision wrap, a tough plastic wrap material designed to keep car interiors dry and cover open sections of the car. All that seems reasonable. Then it rained. Water from the rain pooled on the crash wrap surface. The next day, there’s high temperatures and a lot of sun and – this is the part where it gets amazing – the shape of the volume of trapped water on the crash wrap was such that the water became, essentially, a magnifying lens, focusing the sunlight into the interior of the car in a powerful beam that did this damage:
Look at that! It’s astounding! Also, the pattern it makes is the result of the rotation of the Earth, so if you know any Flat Earth idiots, here’s more proof that they need to maybe just not talk so much anymore.
Also, it’s amazing the upper plastic didn’t melt; I guess the water-lens prevented that from happening?
What are the odds of all these things happening together to cause this? It’s bonkers! It feels like those dumb Final Destination movies where some shirtless dude trying to make fishsticks manages to burn down his apartment and die by a ladder stabbing:
Incredibly, this kind of thing isn’t unheard of in the automotive world and its continuing battle with the sun. Remember the Chrysler TC by Maserati? Sure you do. One doesn’t forget a car like that. Remember how it had that funny porthole window? That was its big trademark! Well, those windows would focus sunlight in the same way and burn the carpets in the back:
Incredible. You know what else is incredible? The fact that the Jeep we’re talking about here didn’t completely catch on fire! If you’re looking for a positive takeaway from all this, consider that: thanks to the federal FMV SS 302 (Flammability of interior materials) standard, automotive interior materials are remarkably flame retardant, which means that instead of the whole Jeep interior going up like a California forest in the middle of a drought, we just get those burned lines.
Anyway, maybe try praying to the sun every now and then? What could it hurt?
Top graphic images: Stellantis; NASA
Adrian: “Sun? I don’t like the sun…don’tcha know I’m a goth vampire by now?! Bloody hell…”
offended torch is calling any part of the FD films stupid. Those films are perfection and I’ll never tolerate libel against them
There’s an old meme of someone who bought a crystal ball, and the seller warned them to always keep it covered when not in use. “To protect us from the spirits?” “No, because if the sun hits it weird it will burn your house down”.
Does the shop cover that damage?
New Final Destination but for cars?
1. Jeep escapes it’s destined death by battery fire.
2. Water in plastic almost sets it ablaze from the inside.
3. Some time in the future: Bags of flour tip over in the vehicle, HVAC turns to full blast, then magpie drops a lit cigarette through the sunroof into the cloud of explosive dust
I deal with FMV SS 302 daily with my day job. We take that standard very seriously here. Good to see other makers maintaining compliance
The Final Destination movie scenes always reminded me of those infomercials where it shows some person completely spazzing out and failing at the most normal, mundane task, like using a broom or something, before doing an over the top expression of frustration because why can’t someone make a broom that’s easy to use?
Like Mr Nipple Ring’s microwave there that just explodes for no apparent reason. Imagine if that scene was in black and white, the camera was off kilter, a big red X was slapped over the screen, and then cut to Billy Mays introducing the Ronco Turbo-Magic Oven
Ron Popeil vs Billy Mays would have totally taken my money. That needs to be a videogame, Mr. Torchinsky sir.
Two extraordinarily enthusiastic infomercial hosts. Unlimited cocaine. One epic battle. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…
TBF a lot of those ads are like that because they are trying to cross-market a tool designed for people with physical disabilities, The only way to make enough money for production on a commerical product intended for someone with, say, ALS or only one hand or something, is to also get normally abled people to buy it, and they won’t buy it if you show actually disabled people using it.
I find it ironic that this happened to a vehicle that is supposed to have a hose-out interior, so could have just sat out uncovered in the rain without issue.
Hold on, I have an idea for Mercedes’ Scion IQ troubles….
Asshole sun, won’t you come
And burn me due to rain
Slow clap
I’m surprised no one else has said this yet:
Dayum Sun!
I’m not too surprised by this: water refracts light, and shaped water can do so like a glass or plastic lens does. I am suprised, like Jason, that something didn’t catch fire inside. I don’t know if the government deserves credit for that (probably) what with standards and all, but let’s give it to them. I hope the guys/gals who deal with materials/flammability/etc… weren’t among the thousands fired by DOGE last year. I gather our current forest fires in Minnesota, and the Cyclosporiasis outbreak can both also be credited to/traced back to Elon Musk and our wise President and their DOGE exploits. The measles boom we can let RFK Jr. take the credit for.
I remember when the plastic exterior C-pillar panel of a Jaguar sedan melted and warped when it was parked in a particular spot on a London street, right in the reflected/focused rays of the sun off of a shiny/mirrored building.
And of course, when Disney Hall first went up in downtown LA, with its shiny metal exterior and many, many curved surfaces, nearby residents complained so much about being blinded/overheated by reflected sunlight that the builders eventually agreed to sandblast the building’s exterior just to reduce the reflectivity (I don’t recall any cars being melted, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen).
More recently (just last week) as I’ve been watching videos from all over the world about high temperatures, I’ve seen a LOT of clips of car parts (and scooters, and trash cans, etc…) being deformed by the burning sun, in cities all around China. Not just on Chinese cars (though most were, leaving some missing entire panels which were now melted puddles of soft plastic goo on the ground) but even a Honda Fit, which had a good-sized hole burned into one of its tail lights (I’m sure there’s a suggestive term for that at one of those bars Jason frequents) and other damage. And all of that is without any sort of lensing effect either.
It’s all pretty impressive, when you consider that those photons travelled 93 million miles to reach that poor Honda.
Ah yes, the ‘walkie talkie’ building, curved in just the wrong way to focus the sun on nearby cars.
Jeep: Do you expect me to talk?
Goldfinger: No, Mr. Jeep, I expect you to die.
Oh, that’s excellent. 🙂
That is approximately where the driver’s balls might be located.
I used to occasionally leave my reading glasses hanging off some elastic on my sunvisors – until the day my arm was in the focal point of the lenses. A different power of lens could easily have focused on my seats.
That is freaking wild
No one worships the sun these days because it literally killing the planet now
A melanoma spotted early and removed 12 years ago during an unrelated dermatology appointment could have done the same to me.
Jeep: Can I leave the garage?
Disembodied voice: NO.
Jeep: Wh-Why not?
Dis. Voice: THE SUN IS A DEADLY LASER.
I recently bought a car from a guy who turned out to be a flat-earther. I am severely tempted to send him this article. The only thing that keeps me from doing so is that I fear he will then start to shell me with Covid-truther links AGAIN.
Definitely don’t, you’ll open the floodgates again.
I sold a motorcycle years ago to some guy who was going to fly out and ride it home. Seemed normal enough on the phone. Asked if I could give him a ride from the airport. Sure. Within about a minute I was surprised he wasn’t on some sort of no-fly list since almost instantly he launched into what seemed to be an audition for the new host of InfoWars, I guess that’s what he considered light small talk to pass time with a stranger. I did my best “smile and nod” and tried to steer the conversation to the transaction at hand but he was absolutely not going to waste the change to violate a stranger’s ears with his horseshit. Can’t imagine the person who got stuck sitting next to him on the plane.
Anyway, he paid the asking price and rode off so at least that went fine, and had real cash, I was half expecting him to hand me some Sovereign Citizen Navy Bucks or want to pay with some crypto shitcoin. But then for like the next week he kept sending me friend requests on FB and texting me links to more horseshit with captions like “INCREDIBLE!!!!!” or “YOU GOTTA SEE THIS” until I finally just blocked his number.
Nightmare fuel
Pretty sure I sat next to this dude on the plan once; can confirm, it was.. awful