So my car caught on fire....

[EricBigNally]

Yeah, Monday was a bit of an eventful day for me. I had this super big presentation as my final for a big research class in school. This was pretty much THE class and MY grade was dependent on this one presentation. It was a group presentation. My group parter was Theresa, my girlfriend. We get to school a little later than we wanted but still about 10 minutes or so early. She realized we didn't have our hand out and said she was going to go look in the car for it. She comes running back in and tells me the car is on fire. For some unapparrent reason, I take off running either not believing her or thinking that I was going to use my superman strenth and find a way to put it out. Upon arrival to the car, I concur that it is on fire... I can see smoke rolling out from underneath the car and under the hood (going out of the driver side front wheel well). Of course my cell phone is where....in the car. I run up to the car to try and crap some things out and get the phone to call 911. I get about 5 feet or so away and feel way too much heat for that to be a good idea. I knew the car wouldn't explode because I had just read a lot of research and watched that episode of Myth Busters that shows it won't explode when it gets to the gas tank, but I also know that a fire can make all kinds of fun things happen like the air bags being deployed. I opted not to go in the car. I ran back in the school and got a friend to call 911. The whole class emptired out into the parking lot to check this out. Two of the teachers that were there grabbed fire extinguishers and tried to put it out but had not such luck. The fire department came and got it taken care of, saving most of the stuff inside the car, all of the stuff inside from fire damage that was important. Some stuff got really smokey and things got pretty wet in there but it didn't get burned up. Then I got to go inside and do my presentation. The teacher was real awesome about it though and was like just work through it the best you can and basically said that if I got up there anddid my best, I was getting an A. If I can get these pictures posted right, I'll post them. The last picture should be the picture through the window the fire deptartment broke out to get inside, instead of letting me give them the keys...

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EDIT:I messed up posting them and had to retry it...

[Littlemeyer]

:shock: Wow! What a day! Glad to hear everything went smoothly with the presentation. Its often hard to concentrate after an event like your car catching on fire. Good thing you recently watched Myth Busters too! Talk about good timing...I would've been in the ditch telling everyone around me "Take Cover! She's Gonna BLOW!!!!!!!!"

[bleedbluelady]

:shock: Glad you are okay! I don't know how you got through your presentation. :shock:

I had a similar thing happen many moons ago. It was a cold winter day and I went outside to start my carto let it warm up. Iwent back in the apartment to finish getting ready for work. When I went back out to drive to work...my car was on fire. This was a car that had all kinds of mechanical problems. I ran back in the house to call the fire department. As soon as I hung up...I thought I should have just let it burn up.;) It didn't matter, the car was totaled. All our friends accused my husband of setting it on fire. ;):ggrin:

[DenCat]

I am glad everything turned out okay, other than the car, and no one was hurt. I was just curious ifthat model car has had a history of catching fire or if it was a freak thing.

[EricBigNally]

DenCat wrote: I am glad everything turned out okay, other than the car, and no one was hurt. I was just curious ifthat model car has had a history of catching fire or if it was a freak thing.
I found out a few hours ago that it seems that it is not exactly a freak thing. It isn't normal, but is has happened before. The O Rings in the fuel rails and the O Rings in the fuel injectors apparently get dry rotted and crack. This spills gas into the engine bay an getting ignited most likely by the exhaust manifolds or something along those lines. I wish I had know that when i bought the car many moons ago...

[zonetoncatfan]

I had a very similar car experience during Derby week when I was at WKU about 18 years ago (yes, they had cars back then, ha ha!). I had just driven back from Louisville on Sunday after Derby and am working at our dorm's front desk when I hear all thse fire engines and think, "Wow! Something is REALLY on fire!" Well, it was my car and it was trashed. Take heart, provided you have insurance, you will at least get reimbursed and it'sa very captivating storyto tell at parties. :) Good luck!