Car fires...

[cchase]

On my way home from up north this weekend I happened to pass by a Chrysler Sebring (maybe some other small sedan Chrysler makes) engulfed in flames at the side of the road. The metal had caught on fire so it was a nice and bright fire.

It made me think, what are the normal causes for a vehicle to catch on fire. Off the top of my head I can think of fuel leaks, oil leaks, and electrical problems... what else is out there?

 

[brianl703]

Cigarettes, maybe.

 

[mechtech2]

If the metal was on fire, it was made out of magnesium.
A long skid could ignite it.

 

[eljefino]

If they had an oil leak and overheated (maybe a sludgy 2.7 grinding itself to death internally?) that'd do it.

Steel burns, it needs help unless it's super thin like steel wool.

 

[cchase]

Originally Posted By: mechtech2
If the metal was on fire, it was made out of magnesium.


That's all I could think either, how does steel burn? Who knows, maybe it was just the paint. When I passed by in the other direction about a half hour later there were no body panels left on the front half of the car so who knows...

 

[opus1]

But is it steel burning? Probably half of the front and rear modern cars is the plastic bumper cover. And I may be mistaken, but weren't the front fenders on the Cirrus/Stratus/Sebring plastic?

 

[IndyIan]

Driving off road and getting long grass caught around the cat could start a fire but I think the car still needs more than paint under there to support a fire.

User "error" can start a fire too, my uncle had a late 70's new yorker(the huge ones) and it had carb trouble sometimes so the procedure was to take off the air cleaner cover and dump gas down the carb to start it... My cousin did this and got gas all over and then when they went to start it the engine backfired and lit up the engine... It was winter and there was a dirty snowbank nearby so they managed to put the fire out with cruddy snow and the car started again with slush and sand dumped down the carb... It got home but that was the end of that engine and car.
Also that car lit up the carpet once or twice due to bad wiring so it wasn't that popular anymore with anyone in the family.

 

[SuperDave456]

I've seen a fire start after a small wreck/fender bender.

I witnessed the fire beginning before the police/firefighters got to the scene, being that it was in the middle of a major intersection and that nobody appeared injured I figured that the best thing I could do was keep moving.

The fire started under the hood on the passenger side and looked like it was burning through the plastic grill between the windshield and the hood of the car. Probably electrical in nature as there are a bunch of wires in that area typically.
The car that was burning was a Town & Country minivan.

 

[bigmike]

My friend lost his mustang due to a car fire. Leaking (or punctured)fuel hose was the culprit.

I broke the block on my Mazda truck and the oil sprayed all over the header. I got most of the fire out by popping the hood while doing somewhere around 30MPH, trying to safely get off the interstate. Had a few bottles of water in the bed that I used to finish it off. Big mess.

Ever since then I have always installed a fire extinguisher somewhere in the vehicle. In my Silverado, it's mounted to the side of the bed. In the Accord, it's in the trunk.

 

[cchase]

Originally Posted By: bigmike
Ever since then I have always installed a fire extinguisher somewhere in the vehicle. In my Silverado, it's mounted to the side of the bed. In the Accord, it's in the trunk.


It's a great thing to have, just in case. I keep one in my truck. It's probably not actually enough to stop a fire once it gets going but it's a little piece of mind. I can't imagine suddenly having flames coming out of my hood driving along but it's kind of a terrifying thought to anyone who cares about their vehicles. Sad way to see one go.

 

[PT1]

My Mom's 1974 Chevy Impala caught fire from a carb backfire. It burned all the way to the tires and gas tank which exploded. Unbelieveable heat and smoke from the interior. The car had 24000 miles on it. GM told her....sorry not our fault.

 

[robbobster]

Isuzu Troopers with the GM 2.8L V6 & transmission had fire issues. If the transmission overheated or was overfilled, it spewed fluid which would drip onto the exhaust manifold...poof - instant carfire.

 

[punisher]

About '85 my dorm mate was heading back to Dallas in his Mustang SVO at the end of the semester. North of Austin on I35 he looked to the right and saw flames. He pulled over, got out and watched his car burn to the ground with all of his college stuff. No chance of saving it.

Ford actually sent forensic engineers out to determine the cause of the fire. Verdict was a loose/broken oil supply line to the turbo, oil on the exhaust manifold, and fire that spread to dealer applied undercoating.

 

[Bluestream]

Originally Posted By: punisher
About '85 my dorm mate was heading back to Dallas in his Mustang SVO at the end of the semester. North of Austin on I35 he looked to the right and saw flames. He pulled over, got out and watched his car burn to the ground with all of his college stuff. No chance of saving it.

Ford actually sent forensic engineers out to determine the cause of the fire. Verdict was a loose/broken oil supply line to the turbo, oil on the exhaust manifold, and fire that spread to dealer applied undercoating.


Did Ford give him a new car?

 

[bretfraz]

There is/was a video on You Tube with a VW GTI catching on fire while the guys in it were filming. IIRC, they had installed a stereo or done some electrical work which sparked and caused the fire. From the time they noticed smoke until the car was fully engulfed was only a few minutes.

EDIT - Found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tshlIpUpoP0

 

[n8wvi]

A bad spark plug leading to unburned fuel pushed through exhaust. This can get the cat white hot.

Dave

 

[Benzadmiral]

I had my '75 Volvo 164 burn up while I was driving it. Just as I noticed something milky splashing on the windshield, my then wife shrieked, "Fire!" (She told me later the flames were licking out from under the dash.) I wrestled the car to the side of the road, we leaped out, and jogged to a safe distance. From there we watched my "new" used car burn from end to end.

We were outside a club, and people came out to watch. One asked me, "Is that your car?" I said, heavily, "It was. . . ."

Turned out to be a broken fuel line, a frequent problem on those mid-70s Volvos, I found later. It put me off foreign cars for quite a while.

 

[01rangerxl]

I have had one close call. When I first got my Explorer it had an aftermarket cigarette lighter in the original lighter socket. I decided to see if it worked, so I pushed it in while I was cruising along at 60 MPH. Several seconds later, the hot lighter shoots out of the dash and into the back seat! Luckily there was a place I could stop and the lighter didn't ignite the carpet or anything.

 

[Sunabozu]

i always store a bottle or two of HD-40 in front of the battery behind the headlight on my Ranger, and now my B2 (since they have an identical front end) because it's a convenient place and i'd have to open the hood to get to the fill tube anyway.

That, and if it's not in my truck i can't spill it on the carpet. i spilled some lucas on the carpet about a year ago and i *STILL* can't get it out.


i was driving my ranger along the highway when it started to run like [censored], lost power, which it didn't have a lot of in the first place being a 2.3, so i pulled over and popped the hood.

about two seconds later three foot high flames shot out of the open hood off of my exhaust manifold and i smoked out the entire area.

turns out what happened was, the battery shifted and knocked one of the bottles over, the fan knocked the lid off, and it sprayed oil all over the engine, causing the smoke, best guess is that the smoke was suffocating the engine.

threw some bottled water on it, didn't help one bit, eventually it burned out and i started it back up and drove home.

 

[punisher]

Originally Posted By: Bluestream

Did Ford give him a new car?


Interesting story on that.

FoMoCo did indeed pony up and TRY to give him a new SVO Stang. The problem was at the time there were none available. Instead a loaded Turbo T-Bird was offered, and accepted as a replacement (not sure if additional monies were involved). Great car, he did love it as he spent a fair amount of time on the road and the SVO was a bit of a kidney punch compared to that smooth T-bird. I guess about 3 months after he took delivery of the T-Bird, he left the crankshaft on the on ramp of I-35 and the car sat at the dealer for 2 months waiting on a replacement engine.

Around '95 we had a mini reunion and we caught up on old times. Turned out he finally found a cherry SVO Stang which he bought and treasured. Far as I know he still has it. In a related note, another college bud bought an SVO as well, and keeps it covered in his garage. Maybe drives it 4 times/yr. His daily driver is a 944 turbo.