James Trueblood held up a pair of black, queen-size pantyhose, standing in the sun outside his south Anchorage shop, JT Auto. I’d brought them in because I wanted to know if they could help protect my car from volcanic ash.
Mount Spurr is nearly 80 miles west of Anchorage, and volcanologists say it’s likely to erupt within weeks or months. That’s a problem for cars because volcanic ash is bad for their engines, windshields, and even paint jobs.
Trueblood told me I wasn’t the first person to ask him about pantyhose, but he hadn’t actually installed a pair yet. He said the idea is that the pantyhose work as a sort of pre-filter before the car’s air filter. If a lot of ash particles make it past the filter and into the engine, it can mess with the way the car runs and eventually damage the engine. That can happen while ash is falling, or later, when it gets kicked up on the roads.
Trueblood wasn’t sure the pantyhose would do a whole lot, but he said they can’t hurt. He popped the hood of my car and pointed to the long plastic snorkel thing, an air intake going from the front of the engine, back to a black plastic box — the air filter cover. He said every car is different, but they all have that intake somewhere and it’ll lead you to the filter.
He detached the cover and pulled the filter out, then slid the torso of the pantyhose on. He folded the waistband over at the end to create a seal and tucked the legs along the back of the filter. He said it’s important to secure any excess fabric, because it’s a bad idea to have the pantyhose legs flapping around inside the engine.
Once the pantyhose were on Trueblood popped the plastic filter cover back in place.
But then he took it right back off and slid the pantyhose off the filter. He said they can’t hold up long term to the continuous vacuum of an air filter. Trueblood said if you decide to use pantyhose, you should wait until Mount Spurr erupts. Otherwise they could deteriorate inside the engine, which would cause a whole new set of problems.
But Trueblood said he’s not planning to get a pair for his car. He said he thinks the car’s air filter will work just fine, so he’s just going to keep a few spares on hand.
Trueblood said pantyhose can help if there’s ash falling, or a thick blanket on the ground and you have to drive. But you can also just check your air filter after you drive. He said you can knock it against your tire and if a lot of ash falls off, you should swap it out for a new one.
And if you’re driving through ashfall, he said you shouldn’t turn your wipers on. The ash is made up of bits of volcanic glass, minerals, and rock, which can scratch windshields. If you need your wipers to see, Trueblood recommends continuously spraying wiper fluid while they’re on. If you run out, he said water is better than nothing.
Trueblood said those tiny particles are bad for the paint on a car too.
“Try not to brush the ash off with a snow brush,” he said. “Because that's the one thing we all have easily available, and that is not going to do us any good on the paint and the appearance of our car.”
He said it’s better to clean the car with a hose. And if you have a paint job you really care about, put the car in the garage with a cover on it, or at the very least, tarp it up until the ash is mostly washed away. `
That’s good advice in general if there’s a whole lot of ash on the ground, he said.
“Maybe our best choice is to stay at home, stay inside, and not drive through it,” he said.
Otherwise, he said, just pay a little extra attention to your car, and it’ll likely be fine.