[a little long, so bear with me] <--- that's what he said

Sooooo, i took a half-day at work today to take care of some personal things. One of the things i wanted to do was to swing by my dealership to check on some parts that i had ordered, and to see about having a Tech take a ride with me to listen to a rattle that had been coming from the front passenger side of the car. This rattle had been annoying me for months on-end, and i could not isolate it for the life of me. Well, the Tech wasn't available, so the Service Manager took a ride instead - of course, i couldn't reproduce the rattle with him in the car (typical, right?), and i told Ray (Service Manager) that i would bring it in another time to have them take a closer look.

Well, i'm driving home jamming to some TOOL when my radio cuts out on me, and then comes back on. Then, all of a sudden, a huge cloud of dark, grey, ominous, smoke comes pouring out of my a/c vents into the cabin. I also noticed that it was beginning to come out of my hood by the windshield wipers too. I immediately knew i had some sort of electrical fire and whipped the car to the side of the road and popped the hood. Now, of course, the last thing you want to do to a fire is give it more oxygen, but i wasn't about to sit there and let my baby burn. So, i open the hood and discover that i have a fire back by my battery down in the small well between it and the cabin filter cover. At this point - i'm freaking out!!

I managed to extinguish the fire and upon closer inspection, i discover that my in-line fuse for my amps had some how worked its way loose and shorted out on the metal a/c lines leading into the cabin via the firewall. The entire fuse holder was melted, and the (+) positive cable was completely torched, as was the (-) negative cable. I didn't have my tools on me, so i wrapped the (+) cable up in some cloth and secured it in the engine bay to avoid any more metal to metal contact and limped home.

Here is the carnage

The black soot came off easily, and there wasn't a lot of damage to the paint except for some severe yellowing on the hood directly above where the fire took place.














The good news is, is that i didn't lose her. The other good news is that i finally figured out what the hell that rattle was (yeah, it was the in-line fuse banging on the a/c line). I replaced the fuse holder, battery cables, and amp cables and despite her yellow bruise under the hood, she's back to normal.

Let this be a lesson boys and girls, make sure all your electrical connections are secure!!

 

YIKES! To all of a sudden see black smoke coming out the AC vents would freak me out for sure.
Makes me want to go rip out all my stereo equipt. At least damage is minimal and you didn't ignite

 

way to go SPARKY!

 

Sooo lucky.

Sucks that there was a fire, but I'm glad your car didn't go up in flames.

 

Jesus, glad it was not any worse than that!

 

and you just had a paint job done. daym that sux. i should pay my fuse holder a visit. what you gonna do about the paint now?

 

good job in putting out the fire - something like that could have easily become out of control and taken her down (especially with the battery going up!). Interesting that you have a 5th ave parked next to it ... it's so not an A4, but a good car in it's own way. (I had one previously too)

 

I am very fortunate to have gotten it out before it got out of control. The only paint damage is right above where the fire occurred - no bubbling, or peeling of any nature, just a yellowish spot that i probably won't be able to remove even with rubbing compound. The remainder of the car is okay (thankfully)

Nice catch. It's a complete POS, but it still runs like a champ.

 

Yeah man, your lucky as hell. My mom's brand new Impreza (she got it in January) burned up on the side of the highway in June, the same night I graduated high school. Helluva coincedence.

 

i would be freak out!! seriously.. so how much for repairs?