DAILY NEWS WRITERS
August 10th 2009
Alejandro Soler, assistant to 'executioner' mechanic Joe Chiu, holds the sodium silicate that destroys car engines after the cars are brought in as part of the Cash for Clunkers program.
Their deaths can be slow, violent and painful to watch. Some die quickly, others put up a fight.
The grim scene has been playing out at car dealerships across the city: battered gas-guzzlers gasp their way to the grave while a caustic chemical is poured down their open crankshafts.
"I spend my whole career fixing these cars, now I'm killing them," said Joe Chiu, mechanic and resident clunker executioner at Paragon Honda on Northern Blvd. in Woodside, Queens. "It's kind of a weird feeling," said Chiu, adding a clunker's maker offers no insight into how long it will take to kill the car. "It depends on the engine's condition," Chiu, 35, said. "If the bearings are already worn out and there's a lot of oil sludge, it'll die fast no matter what."
The clunkers' engines wheeze, cough and finally choke to death - seized by two quarts of liquid glass, which slowly solidifies in their bellies. The destruction, mandated under the federal Cash for Clunkers program, can take seconds or minutes.
David Citron, the designated killer at Plaza Auto Mall in Brooklyn, is convinced foreign cars die quickest. He's witnessed Nissans go kaput in less than 60 seconds and Fords battle for more than four minutes.
"It's not that the [foreign cars] are weak, but they're not made like the Chevys or Fords," Citron said. He should know: He's put down nearly 70 clunkers.
On a recent day, Chiu's theory held up. He killed the engines of nine oversized autos in an hour, with the aid of an assistant and a bottomless supply of sodium silicate, the agent of death.
After draining the engines of their oil, Chiu filled them with sodium silicate and then ran the engine at about 2,000 rpm. A 2000 Ford Explorer with 143,000 miles clunked out in just four seconds.
