Help CO Method with Car

[Morris1211]

If you could get access to an older car would you be able to successfully CTB by CO poisoning? What year would the car have to be?

 

[Dejected 55]

The combination of the catalytic converter and more fuel efficiency in cars over the last 30+ years has made suicide by car extremely difficult if not impossible. Your best bet is going to be a car pre catalytic converter, not just for the lack of that "filter" but also for the inefficiency of the fuel burning in those older cars. I couldn't say the exact year but I probably wouldn't consider anything newer than 1985 at a minimum. Might need to be 1970s to be sure.

 

[OnMyLast Legs]

The combination of the catalytic converter and more fuel efficiency in cars over the last 30+ years has made suicide by car extremely difficult if not impossible. Your best bet is going to be a car pre catalytic converter, not just for the lack of that "filter" but also for the inefficiency of the fuel burning in those older cars. I couldn't say the exact year but I probably wouldn't consider anything newer than 1985 at a minimum. Might need to be 1970s to be sure.

The switch to catalytic converters was in the early 70s. It would have to be an old old old car.

 

[kurgan]

You can still die in relatively modern cars. Funnily enough, today was reading about Christopher Scholtes, who topped himself in his Honda S2000 (1999–2009) back in early November.

 

[Ramire_Artes]

It takes a lot of PPM to die they must be stable over time

 

[Dejected 55]

The switch to catalytic converters was in the early 70s. It would have to be an old old old car.

Correct... I was just allowing for the possibility that some cars in the late 1970s and early 1980s might still be viable IF you removed the catalytic converter. What I don't know is how effective a modern car is even with that removed... but certainly cars in the early days of the catalytic converter would still have been inefficient and might be viable IF you removed the converter.

You can still die in relatively modern cars. Funnily enough, today was reading about Christopher Scholtes, who topped himself in his Honda S2000 (1999–2009) back in early November.

I think the trick with cars that are newer is that the amount of CO produced is so low that you'd have to have a well-sealed area and be in there a much longer time. Also, if the area is well-sealed, there exists the possibility that there wouldn't be enough oxygen to burn the available fuel in the car, and thus produce CO. As in... the newer cars are more efficient and do not pollute as much, so by the time you started to have a higher CO concentration available you'd have used up most of the available oxygen already. If that makes sense.

 

[kurgan]

Correct... I was just allowing for the possibility that some cars in the late 1970s and early 1980s might still be viable IF you removed the catalytic converter. What I don't know is how effective a modern car is even with that removed... but certainly cars in the early days of the catalytic converter would still have been inefficient and might be viable IF you removed the converter.

I think the trick with cars that are newer is that the amount of CO produced is so low that you'd have to have a well-sealed area and be in there a much longer time. Also, if the area is well-sealed, there exists the possibility that there wouldn't be enough oxygen to burn the available fuel in the car, and thus produce CO. As in... the newer cars are more efficient and do not pollute as much, so by the time you started to have a higher CO concentration available you'd have used up most of the available oxygen already. If that makes sense.

Definitely riskier. Apparently, he had a rope and a step ladder set up in case it failed.