Factual error: When the tanker trailers are separated from each other, the trailer brakes would apply, causing the trailers to skid and/or stop. No one hooks up air lines on the pickups to prevent this from happening. (00:01:00 - 00:03:00)
Factual error: There's no way the pickup trucks could haul the stolen tanker trailers, even as modified as the pickup trucks are. The gas engines they are using don't have the necessary torque to haul the probably 30,000 pounds the full trailers weigh, and the trucks do not show a heavy enough suspension to haul the weight either. Besides, no one hooks up the airlines necessary to release the trailer brakes. (00:01:00 - 00:04:00)
Factual error: During the first theft of the tankers, the pickups backing up to the tanks throw an A-frame over the pintle hitches to steal the trailers. Aside from the fact that it is extremely difficult to hook up that type of hitch, even when stationary, there is a closure over the hook that locks the eye of the A frame in place to prevent it from popping out of the hook. It would be impossible to throw the eye over the hook on a normal hitch that way, and the close up shots of the hitch show the top closure missing. If it's missing, the eye would pop out of the hook either braking, hitting a bump or accelerating. (00:02:00 - 00:05:00)
Factual error: During the first tunnel sequence, all the cars travel very far into the mountains, turn lots of corners, yet not only is Gisele still able to speak to them over the radios, their GPS still works. GPS signals invariably need a clear 'sight' of the sky and can penetrate light cover, but most certainly not that depth and cover. (00:58:05)
Factual error: The animation depicting a car engine at the end of the movie is incorrect. The animation shows a combustion event each time the cylinder reaches TDC (top dead center). A four cycle engine only has one combustion event for every two cycles of the piston. (01:35:30)
Factual error: When Dom emerges from the tunnel driving F-Bomb, he downshifts and presumably hits the throttle, causing the car's front end to lift. The car is on dirt and wearing street tires. It's not physically possible for the car to get the traction required to transfer whatever amount of horsepower we're expected to believe the car has to the ground, so that the front will lift. The only reaction the car would have had was to spin the rear tires wildly, kicking up more dirt and likely causing the car to swerve 'furiously'. (01:35:30)
Factual error: Dom removes the hose from his nitrous oxide cylinder to fill his car with the gas and then pushes in his cigarette lighter. The fact is that nitrous oxide is not actually flammable on its own. Nitrous oxide is an oxidiser that contains a higher oxygen content than air. This is why it is pumped into engines so that more fuel can also be added to create a stronger explosion. Filling a car with nitrous oxide would not make it explode. You could put a lighter in the car surrounded by the gas and it just mean that the flame would burn brighter - not create an explosion radius of about 5 metres. It is not explosive when introduced to heat. The only way this is true is if the bottle itself was heated up to explosion levels - would be a few hundred degrees as they are pressure tested to significant levels.
Factual error: During the final chase across the desert, Dom fires at several cars, shooting out their tyres, several of those cars then stop dead and the back ends of the those cars lift up and flip over. Those cars might lose control, but it wouldn't cause the back ends of the cars to defy gravity in such a way unless they actually hit something, which they never do.
Factual error: "Fast and Furious" [4th film] takes place after "The Fast & the Furious" and before "2 Fast 2 Furious. However there's an R35 Nissan Skyline in the film, which didn't exist at that time.
Suggested correction: Fast and Furious doesn't take place before 2 Fast 2 Furious. The opening sequence takes place before Tokyo Drift, the rest takes place in 2009.
This entire film (as well as the next two after is) take place before the events of "Tokyo Drift." The beginning of this film, taking place in the Dominican Republic, takes place not too long after the events of the first film, probably around the same time as the events of "2 Fast 2 Furious." The rest of the film takes place quite some time after the events of "2 Fast 2 Furious." It is the 7th film that catches up to and continues after the events of "Tokyo Drift."
