RE: Flaming Audis

["Buchholz, Steven" <Steven.Buchholz@kla-tencor.com>]

> Has anyone installed a killswitch somewhere like on the front 
> of the rear
> seat compartment near where the seat is screwed down?  Could 
> you splice a
> killswitch circuit in at, say, the under-hood positive 
> terminal, or does
> some of the battery output go elsewhere before reaching that point?

WOW ... that must have been a very saddening sight.  While commuting to/from
work I've actually seen two vehicles involved in total loss fires in the
past month or so.  I wonder if the fire was caused by a blown rad fan, or
perhaps by broken wires in the loom to the driver's door.  

To answer your question, there is the splice under the front passenger floor
which would make an under-hood solution not the best.  I suppose that one
thing that you could do is to install some sort of kill switch in the
passenger's kick panel ... which might resolve the known issue with the
splice as well.  It seems to me that I've seen ads for remotely controlled
kill switches ... if you could find something like that you could mount it
at the battery and have a kill switch mounted in some more accessible place.


The thing that I would most heartily recommend however is the installation
of a fire extinguisher in a location that is readily accessible from the
driver's seat.  

My condolences to your friend!
Steve Buchholz
San Jose, CA (USA)