Urban Legends: Automobiles (Sweet Revenge)

Judging from the entries made on one police blotter after another, cars around the nation are having their gas tanks sugared by those whom their owners have displeased. Why is this happening? Because, according to widespread belief, sugar poured into a gas tank will Sugar, Sugar turn into a poor man’s version of liquid cement and quickly render the vehicle’s engine unfit for anything but a junkyard. In theory, the sugar dissolves into the gasoline, then travels along the fuel lines into the engine, where the heat of the vehicle’s operations melts the sweetener into a dense sludge that gets into every nook and cranny of the engine. The sucrosed engine seizes and halts the vehicle in its tracks, but the real damage comes when the engine cools and the sludge hardens to rock-like consistency. Only the replacement of the entire engine will render the car fit for use again, says popular wisdom; otherwise, it’s kiss your jalopy goodbye.

It is for such reason that this theory is so fervently cherished — it appears to grant, for the price of a 5 lb. bag of sugar, the ability to effect great and irreparable harm to an adversary’s most prized possession. The touted mode of vengeance is both inexpensive and easy to carry out, a combination that seems to put the power of getting even into the hands of anyone, no matter how disadvantaged.

However, revenge fantasies aside, this snippet of popular lore turns out not to be the sure and deadly car killer the retribution-minded would want to believe it is. As with many grand schemes, it lives more vividly in its imagining than in reality.

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