In Local Audi News: Car goes up in flames in downtown street

[laraa at sympatico.ca]

My good friend Denis is a mechanical engineer whose day job is to investigate car/truck/tractor fires for insurance purposes. 

On older cars, it's generally electrical fires caused by corrosion of some wires. 

On newer cars, like this 2010-up A4/S4, it's probably an aftermarket remote-starter-caused fire. Those are the culprit 9 times out of 10, according to him. Cheap stuff, cheaply installed. The other 10% ? Mods done to turbo cars. Chips that are way too agressive cause exhaust melting or engine shrapnels. Then oil on a red hot exhaust is all you need to start the fire. After that, no need for fuel : plastics and paint and underhood stuff is enough to burn a car to the ground. Fuel will help, but it is not necessary.

Louis-Alain
-21C tonight in Montreal. I'm just coming in after watering the skating rink I build each winter for my two little princesses... When cold water from the garden hose produce a huge plume of vapor, it is indeed quite cold... The ice will be superb !
 

-----Message d'origine-----
De : quattro [mailto:quattro-bounces at audifans.com] De la part de Mike Arman
Envoyé : 7 janvier 2015 17:35
À : quattro at audifans.com
Objet : In Local Audi News: Car goes up in flames in downtown street



Question . . . could this be specifically a Bosch/VW/Audi related problem?


Some years back I had a 914 and I needed some bits - went to a joint called Nick and Noel's Salvage in Orlando, Porsche and M-B only. They had a LINE of low mileage 914s which had had "minor" engine fires, enough to total the cars. I understand there was a recall on the fuel injectors on these, the rubber hose between the injector body and the high pressure rail leaked and managed to spray fuel on the hot engine, with completely predictable results.

I also wonder if we hear about this because we talk about our cars. I've seen very, very few auto fires in fifty years. One was in about 1968, a Pontiac convertible which scraped the gas tank on a concrete divider, my date and I watched the whole thing from the initial sparks to the smoking hulk. 
(Nobody was hurt.) This wasn't the car's fault. It turned out to be a hot date, but not in exactly the way we expected . . .

The next one was a Rolls Corniche convertible which was burned in a house fire. I bought the engine out of that one for $129.95 at the You-Pull-It and sold it for a grand through Hemmings. Turns out there is a group that hot-rods these cars (!) and they wanted it for that. This one wasn't the car's fault either, it was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Then there was a Triumph Trident on which one of the carb ticklers got stuck - or at least that is what the owner told the insurance company. I knew both him and the bike and have my own opinion as to what really happened.

So we're 0 for 3 on non-Audi/Bosch/VW vehicles.

Then we read on the list about the various Audis which have done the do-it-yourself Viking funeral trick, and there have been more than a few, far outnumbering other makes. Why do WE see "so many" 
and don't hear about other makes of cars burning down.

There's a known problem with A-8s and leaky high-pressure fuel lines, there seems to be an endemic problem with older type 44s and their variants, and there was the 914 debacle. Commonality: Bosch fuel system components.

Do other makes/models have the same incidences of fires, or are we something special? I wonder what the percentages are, same for everyone, or higher for specific makes due to the suppliers of fuel system components? Is Bosch the problem? Fuel lines? Connections?

Statistics?

Best Regards,

Mike Arman
90V8Q



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