******How Not To Store Your Wheels**********

[FrgMstr]

Take this how you want. **** you. You are in no position to judge anyone. I never liked your better than you snide remarks anyhow.

I will take it as a cry for education. And I think everyone agrees that learning something is a good thing especially for the small business man.

Refraction refers to how a light wavelength enters into a changing medium where its speed is impacted, effectively changing its direction. That is what you were seeing happen in your headlights. A classic "magnifying glass effect" if you will when the wavelengths are redirected to merge a "single" point.

What is interesting here is that the wheels actually acted as a concave reflective lens. Reflection is what happens when when light, or other forms of electromagnetic radiation intersect with an object that will not absorb the radiation and bounces off.

What is really crazy about the picture he posted was the multiple burn points. Just getting one burn point at all would seem to be difficult due to spherical aberrations that normally occur with a concave mirror. But that is an aside we can discuss later if you wish. It would seem from the picture that he was able to actually focus (by accident of course) four separate concave "lenses" from the wheel. Pretty neat science stuff to happen by accident. Getting four points lined would probably be pretty tough to do even if you were trying.

So are you a Beakman guy by chance? I know Nye won out, but Beakman was always my favorite.

 

[KNG SNKE]

It definitely was not a cry for education, especially from you. Believe me, I have not learned a thing from you. The message was typed without proofreading and fast since I was on the way out. You are correct, it is refraction, I am aware it is refraction. I am also aware that mirrors cause reflection i.g., shiny wheel. I am also aware that I work on electromagnetic radiation for a living (RNSSMS) as well and I understand the properties behind it. As stated, I "mistyped". Regardless from your science lesson, he most likely did not have all 4 points focus at the same time. He stated he has been opening his garage door multiple times and the wheels have been there. There is a good chance that this has happened prior and he didn't notice. That would account for all 4 points not being the same size i.g., the burning source "the sun", moves which is why it made a line for 2 of them. It is very possible that the smaller dots happened previously, but with less time in the sun. Since the wheels have been in the same spot it is more likely that two spots appeared each time, the most recent ones were most likely from the garage door being opened for a longer period of time. It is even possible that this happened 4 times, though the individual burns seem to have similar size which makes me believe twice.

Just food for thought and I definitely appreciate your better than you explanation that you do oh so well.

 

[Hoosier Daddy]

Back in the hey day of this site this issue was brought up many times. I think I remembered one where someone was sitting by his car and his leg or pants started to burn.

 

[eabrillon1978]

Believe it or not, this actually happened all in the same day. When initially saw the smoke, there were no burn marks yet, just started smoking from the paint and the panel was very hot to the touch, like something was melting on the other side, that was my reasoning to think it was the battery. I thought it was sparking somewhere and causing the battery to heat up and start melting. The panel kept getting hotter and I saw the burning start to take place. It was happening in all the areas at the same time, so I rounded up the tools to get the wheel off (which was about less than a minute) then pretty much most what you see in the pics happened in that minimal of a time. If I would have known it was the reflection of the wheels in the first place I could have prevented all of that damage and just maybe had a tint of yellowing from it starting.

Just my luck for this to happen, but just my luck to be there when it did. Like I mentioned earlier, I leave my garage open quite a bit and I could have come out to melted car. Lesson learned, they'll be standing upright from now on or covered with a towel.

I have the feeling this is going to be one an a million shot to try to duplicate in the future.

 

[KNG SNKE]

Gotcha, think the 2 smaller dots were from when you jacked the car up?

 

[scottmarston]

Gotcha, think the 2 smaller dots were from when you jacked the car up?

I think EACH wheel was causing a burn. THEN he either moved the wheels a little or jacked the car up and, as a result, caused the other two burns. BAM!

 

[mattdillon]

I have a TT setup and had a mishap with one of them a couple of weeks ago, I removed both of them last week to send them in for repair and this required me to take off the front wheels to get access to them. My car was down for a year prior to this. I had my wheels in the same place for during the entire down time. They've been there for about a week now and this happened.

Dang, Brill Sounds Like You've Just Been Having Some BAD Luck there for A Lil' Stretch! Lol! Hopefully You'll Start Having Some GOOD Luck Come Your Way Now My Friend!

 

[eabrillon1978]

The two small spots are a pic taken on the passenger side of the bumper, they were made from the other wheel. The car happened to be on jackstands already when this happened, It's kind of hard to tell from the angle of the pic that it up in the air on all 4 corners. If I would have had to jack the car, I probably could of saved myself a lot sooner because I would have had to move the wheels to get access to the frame.

The wheels are under the bumper, so maybe that's why the intensity of the heat was so great.

Must have been the angle of the sun on the wheels to not burn it like the other side. That spot wasn't there when the other side was starting out. that's another reason i was thinking the battery. that area formed about right when I got all the
lugnuts off the wheel.

So far the luck isn't looking too good. Just got a quote to repaint the bumper and looks like it's going to be around $500 to fix. Bummer......

 

[WDW MKR]

Regarding the bickering about refraction/reflection and the exact sequence through which the multiple spots were burned, I'd like to paraphrase a quote from the great cinematic masterpiece, Major League: "Who gives a ****? It's burnt."

 

[GTSGTO]

I was cleaning a wheel on a bright sunny day and my leg started to get really hot. I looked at my pants and they were smoking. The wheel does act like a magnifying glass. Be careful !!

 

[KNG SNKE]

Regarding the bickering about refraction/reflection and the exact sequence through which the multiple spots were burned, I'd like to paraphrase a quote from the great cinematic masterpiece, Major League: "Who gives a ****? It's burnt."

True statement