The Corvette was soused. Tanked up. Three seat covers to the wind.

After failing Missouri's tailpipe emission test several times - and spending $1,000 to repair it - the owner of the black, 1980s-era car told repair technicians this month that he dumped 3 gallons of denatured alcohol into the gas tank to get it to pass.

It didn't work. The car actually had a fuel leak, said Mike Hecht, manager of technical services and training for AAA Missouri. But the damage was done: The whopping shot of alcohol damaged the fuel pump, and it had to be replaced after the car was retested.

Fueled by the Internet and the automotive grapevine, more St. Louis-area motorists appear willing to use home cures for their smog-belching cars. Most involve blending different types of alcohol with their gasoline in a desperate effort to make it burn cleaner. Hecht has even heard of motorists tossing beer into the tank.

"It's all through the Internet," Hecht told a group of auto repair technicians last week at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park. "I mean this stuff is crazy."

Hecht shared some of his sleuthing with the class. A couple of Web sites urged people to attach magnets to their fuel lines to align the fuel ions to reduce emissions. It appeared to be an offshoot of an urban myth that surfaced during the 1970s fuel crisis. Back then, it was supposed to improve fuel economy.

Hecht said repair stations have seen more evidence of these cheaper, home-brewed fixes since the beginning of the year. That's when new state rules increased the amount motorists may wind up spending to repair their flunking cars.

St. Louis motorists previously qualified for waivers as long as they put $75 to $200 toward fixing the problem, depending on the age of the car. Now, vehicle owners have to spend $200 to $450 on repairs - and their car has to show improvement on subsequent tests - before they can get a waiver.

In April 2000, Missouri began requiring motorists in the St. Louis area to pass an emissions test that uses a treadmill to simulate driving conditions. The region has traditionally exceeded federal levels for ground-level ozone, a colorless, odorless gas created when sunlight cooks certain tailpipe pollutants.

Emissions testing will continue even though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that the St. Louis region's summer ozone levels were at acceptable levels for the past three years.

Missouri and Illinois also screen emissions using the onboard diagnostic computer on most cars built in 1996 or later.

Dennis McMurray, a spokesman for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, said the state knows of people using additives to try to pass emissions tests in the three Metro East-area counties where it is in place and in the Chicago area, but "in most cases they are not effective."

In some instances, an additive could make a difference between pass or fail for older cars, he said, but it amounts to a temporary Band-Aid.

The trouble in the St. Louis area is that so-called oxygenates, chiefly ethanol, already make up about 6 percent to 10 percent of the reformulated gasoline motorists buy at the pumps. The oxygenates help the fuel burn cleaner.

But piling more alcohol on top of that can prove to be too much of a good thing, experts say. It can push the oxygenate level too high and hamper an engine's performance.

Dennis White, who runs A-1 Muffler and Brake in Crystal City, said the owner of a small Mitsubishi pickup recently poured too much of an alcohol-based fuel system cleaner called Heet into his gas tank. But the emissions readings got worse.

"You know how the story goes? If one is good, two is better," White said. "He poured as many as eight bottles in there."

White cut open the catalytic converter, and it was "like opening up a watermelon that was rotten on the inside," he said.

The truck ultimately passed the test, but only after technicians installed a new converter.

"Additives to the gasoline will not make up for mechanical issues with your car," said Charles Dachroeden, the inspection and maintenance section chief at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. "It is how well the engine performs that determines whether it passes or not."

Dachroeden said the agency ran tests for a state legislator in 2001 after a constituent complaint. Employees dumped a store-bought additive into two gas tanks and drove the vehicles for a short time. What they found was that there was little change in the emissions readings.

But Cliff Byron, vice president of operations for Berryman Products of Arlington, Texas, said his company's research shows that its product, Emissions Pass Protection, has reduced the pollutants coming out of a car's tailpipe. It targets the carbon buildup on the intake valves, fuel injectors and the combustion chamber.

But even a product that boasts "You pass or we pay - Double your money back!" has its limitations, Byron said. On its label, it states that the product "cannot correct mechanical problems" with a car.

"It is not for the guy who wants the onetime cleanup, who goes through and does nothing to the engine," Byron said. "Nobody out there claims it is a miracle."

In the end, there is no substitute for a well-maintained vehicle, said Rob Arrol, a spokesman for Environmental Systems Products Missouri Inc. ESP is the company that runs the "enhanced" test facilities in the city of St. Louis and St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson counties.

Kurt McDougal of Ballwin wasn't aware of these auto emissions elixirs before pulling his 1993 Saab into the Manchester test station on a Saturday morning. An engineer, he can't see how anybody could gain an edge by dumping something into the gas tank.

"I think a lot of this stuff is snake oil," he said. "I would be pretty skeptical."

After Hecht, of AAA Missouri, saw three ailing cars in two days this month - all because of fuel additives - he went into two local auto parts stores to find some commercial emissions cleaners. He was stunned when two clerks independently recommended the home remedies instead.

The first suggested rubbing alcohol. The second encouraged him to go to Home Depot and buy some denatured alcohol - often used as a cleaning solvent and thinner.

Motorists whose cars flunk the emissions test need a quality diagnosis of the problem and, yes, repairs.

"There are no shortcuts," Hecht said.

* Written by reporter Ken Leiser for the 8-24-03 St. Louis Post Dispatch Newspaper.
E-mail: kleiser@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8119