I feel the dry chemical powder ABC extinguishers give people a false sense of security. I have had 2 situations where in a fire emergency, I pulled the pin and squeezed the trigger and absolutely NOTHING came out of a total of 4 fire extinguishers!! All 4 had a gauge with a needle showing they were fully charged. It's like they were all "novelty" fire extinguishers. In 2 other instances where they did actually work and put the fire out, everything touched by the dry powder is instantly ruined. So if you put your engine fire out with it, basically, you can save the castings and throw the rest of the engine away if it's a show car. The stuff is so corrosive, it instantly ruins the surface finish on everything.
For automotive and shop use, I am equipped with CO2, and Halon and Halitron extinguishers everywhere. I still have some dry chemical as back-up but do not depend on them. I would not trust one at all that is over 5 years old. The gauges on those little ones mean nothing in my experience.
The Element extinguishers look like a great idea but I would need about 10 of them to cover all my cars and little buildings. I need to bite the bullet and see if they would make me a better deal on a bunch of them. First saw them at the PRI show this past year.
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