Somewhere in a South Carolina parking lot on a bright, sunny day, a guy in a black T-shirt, khaki shorts, and red sneakers decided the most productive use of his afternoon was playing amateur chemist with other people’s fuel systems. Video shows him bent over the rear of a dark SUV, messing around near the gas filler with what looks like a white cup or bag of powder. He finishes up, then casually strolls (then picks up the pace) over to a silver Nissan Maxima with South Carolina plate 7367UK, hops in, and drives off like he just finished his grocery run. No big deal. Just another Tuesday for Maxima owners, apparently, judging by the replies calling this “common Maxima behavior.”
The Myth Is Way Worse Than the Reality
For years, people have sworn that sugar dissolves in gasoline, turns into some sticky caramel sludge, and seizes the entire engine like a candy-coated brick. That’s not how chemistry works. Sugar is polar. Gasoline is non-polar. They don’t mix. A 1994 experiment found less than a teaspoon of sugar would dissolve in a full 15-gallon tank; the rest just sits there as granules at the bottom, denser than the fuel.
It’s more like dumping sand than dissolving anything. The real problem is mechanical. Those granules get sucked toward the fuel pump’s sock filter (the mesh screen on the pickup inside the tank). Enough of them clog that screen, restrict fuel flow, and force the pump to work harder. That can burn out the pump. The main fuel filter further downstream gets packed with the stuff and starves the engine. If fine particles make it past the filters, they can clog injectors. Symptoms are usually rough running, hesitation, stalling, hard starts, or the car eventually dying, not a dramatic engine explosion.
If you catch it early and don’t drive the car, the damage stays limited. Drive it for a while, and you spread the contamination further, making the cleanup more involved and expensive. Mechanics and forensic tests (including MythBusters-style experiments) have confirmed the “caramelized engine death” story is mostly urban legend. Sugar can still cause real, annoying, costly problems. It just rarely totals the car the way the movies and revenge plots pretend it does.
What It Actually Takes to Fix (and What It Costs)
The correct move if you suspect this happened: do not start the car. Have it towed. A mechanic will typically need to drop the tank (or at least thoroughly drain and clean it), flush the lines, and replace the fuel filter for sure. The in-tank pump strainer and pump itself often get inspected or replaced because of the strain and debris. Injectors may need cleaning or replacement if particles got that far.
Ballpark costs from recent shop estimates and reports:
Basic drain, tank clean/flush, and filter replacement: roughly $150–$800, depending on the vehicle and whether the tank has to come all the way out.
Add a fuel pump: that often pushes the total into the $400–$1,500 range.
Injectors involved on top: easily $1,000–$2,500+ in worse cases, especially on cars with more expensive or harder-to-access systems.
A few hundred bucks if you’re lucky and catch it fast. A couple thousand if the pump and injectors get involved. Comprehensive insurance often treats this as vandalism and covers it minus your deductible, assuming you have the coverage and the deductible makes sense to file. One documented case from a few years back ran over $6,000 after the contamination worked its way through the system. It’s not “buy a new engine” money most of the time, but it’s more than enough to make someone’s week miserable and their bank account lighter.
The Maxima of It All
The clip ends with the guy driving away in that silver Maxima. Replies immediately piled on with the stereotype jokes. Whether this was a one-off, part of a pattern (a separate South Carolina TikTok from around the same time showed a woman filming a man pouring what looked like sugar into a tank and saying she was getting the plate “this time”), or something else entirely, the video does a solid job of documenting the act in daylight with a clear view of the getaway car.
Sugar in the tank is an old, inefficient form of vandalism that mostly just creates a mess and a repair bill rather than instant destruction. It still sucks for the person who owns the car that gets hit. And leaving the evidence and the plate on camera while you do it is a special kind of choice.
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