Skoda Fabia vrs mk1 vrs se tdi catches fire

[Bertjindal]

Car catches fire on garage drive 10mins after short 3mile trip with small bang and flames from engine compartment car written off

[devonutopia]

Ahem, any more clearer details please?  Never heard of any fabia vRS just spontaneously combusting before.

[niceyellow vrs]

Car catches fire on garage drive 10mins after short 3mile trip with small bang and flames from engine compartment car written off

 

Pictures or video or it never happened.

[Beard]

Can confirm. This is the view from my drivers seat right now

[Bertjindal]

Here is a picture of aftermath

[devonutopia]

Wow, looks almost like someone tried to trash it with all the glass broken / bonnet folded up etc but assume the heat did that, or the fire service did.

[Mat.M.]

Yikes.

 

How did the bonnet end up like that… it look like crash damage?

[Ryan90VRS]

Dibs on the leather...

[adilVRS]

Thats awful - sorry to see. Hopefully the insurance cover it - but begs the question of what was the cause?

[Bertjindal]

So can I have some feedback as to why this happened my vrs se mk1 had full service history from main dealers and only 49000 on clock I have own several more skodas so devonutopia and nice yellow vrs lets have some useful comments Skoda uk and Lv insurance are aware

[Bertjindal]

The fire service did break the windows the bonnet buckled no crash damage had been running well returning 65 mpg and performing well. My wife had used it that day to travel 3 miles to the supermarket parked it on drive 10 minutes later there was a loud bang the alarm went off and flames were coming out from under the bonnet .the car was a deisel vrs so any clues dealer and Skoda uk have not got any ideas at present

[devonutopia]

Well, diesel doesn't burn really - oil can burn, but not sure how.....

 

Can you give more details, like we know you'd done a 3 mile trip, but when did the fire start - whilst engine ticking over? was engine turned off?

 

I am not sure how, but the only thing I can imagine is somehow a fuel pipe maybe popped off somewhere and sprayed diesel on to something red hot like the exhaust manifold?  Has it had any kind of recent repair work to fuelling, oil lines, or similar?

 

As said, it;s difficult to give feedback when this is the first car I've known do this.

[devonutopia]

TEN minutes later?  There should be nothing to start a fire in my opinion then apart from someone having firebombed the car somehow.   Sounds harsh, but I can't see a car being turned off for 10 minutes bursting in to flames like this.

 

Possible that someone rolled a bottle containing petrol and a lit rag under the car's engine bay?

[Toxicvrs]

Brake fluid pishing out to be ignited?

Apart from that I can't see anything easy to burn under the engine bay of the diesel

[devonutopia]

With 10 minutes passing I can't even see anything would be hot enough to be a source of ignition either - especially as a 3 mile trip won't even warm the engine up to max.  I still sense foul play :(  "small bang" doesn't do anything to sway my thoughts either.

[Toxicvrs]

With 10 minutes passing I can't even see anything would be hot enough to be a source of ignition either. I still sense foul play :(

I'm with Jason on this one, if it had been mechanical it would've gone whilst driving IMHO as everything is a lot cooler after ten mins

[Bogwoppit]

That looks worrying, I hope everyone is OK.

 

Was the car modified in anyway or completely standard?

[VWD]

With 10 minutes passing I can't even see anything would be hot enough to be a source of ignition either - especially as a 3 mile trip won't even warm the engine up to max.  I still sense foul play :(  "small bang" doesn't do anything to sway my thoughts either.

Likewise- I had a bad leak on my 1.4

Edited 18 October, 2014 by VWD

[Bertjindal]

I owned the car from new ,no modifications ,I have nobody who would want to firebomb me to my knowledge the incident witnessed by neighbours after the bang I suppose it may be possible that the fire had started during the drive and continued smouldering but my wife who drove it that afternoon had not noticed anything when she took the shopping out of the car and came into the house. I was not present till 8 pm that day as I was returning from London so the car was burnt out when I got home but I normally drive the car and it had been fine on Friday ,the car exploded on Sunday. I suspect some sort of electromechanical failure myself but what?

[Toxicvrs]

Being a Derv I really can't see anything that could catch fire in the engine bay.

[Bertjindal]

No evidence of fuel leaks eg oil on drive or at parking spaces at work no increased fuel consumption no strange noises. Could the fuel pump compress the fuel so that the pressure was high enough to explode?

[danny6189]

It's got to be something electrical that started smouldering and then eventually caught fire.

[Toxicvrs]

It's got to be something electrical that started smouldering and then eventually caught fire.

Hmm must've been a pretty bad wiring issue as I drove mine back 6 hours of driving with a half melted loom

[J306TD]

I wonder if a lose loom fell onto the engine causing a short that started the fire

Sent from my Galaxy S5

[hutchysrs50]

No evidence of fuel leaks eg oil on drive or at parking spaces at work no increased fuel consumption no strange noises. Could the fuel pump compress the fuel so that the pressure was high enough to explode?

The fuel pump is mechanical and runs off the camshaft, so not unless the engine was running no. My guess is someone started the fire on purpose. Could have also been a wiring fault or the battery giving up. Stranger things have happend.

Edit: Might be worth looking into but I know this has happened before and been posted on the forum with pictures and info.