It's not inside the engine; it's around the engine, in the engine compartment. The engine holds some heat for a long time.Originally Posted by Zoethor2
While there is certainly a risk with cats sleeping inside the car engine, no doubt, I wonder how often serious injury or death from such an activity really occurs. Growing up, we probably had, in the 18 years I was at my parents' house, around 40 cats go through our place for some period of time or other. All of them loved sleeping on cars, and we didn't discourage it, and none of them ever were injured inside the car engine.
I tried google but I'm not getting anything on actual statistics.
You don't really want me to find some of the pictures I've seen of the results of this, do you?
And by the way, the undercarriages of cars are not "sealed." They have quite a bit of open space around the engine. Unless, of course, you're trying to work on it, when there is never enough space.