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First post, but I’ve been lurking on and off for some time—if nothing else, I hope this can provide someone with a good laugh
I’ve been driving my 2006 2.5XT Ltd for a little over six months now and never had any problems with it until recently. Earlier this week, I was parked down in Southern Utah for a few nights while hiking. It got pretty cold out (around 0 °F), and when I started the car up afterwards the radio, AC, and clock were all non-functional. The red backlights of the buttons on the head unit lit up, indicating power, but the rest of the unit was unresponsive and the displays were all blank. After getting the rest of the way to my destination in CO (without heat or radio) and doing some poking around, I determined that these were all connected through fuse 8 (15 A) in the main fuse box; lo and behold, the fuse was broken. After replacing it, everything seemed to be working fine, but I didn’t have anywhere to go so the car stayed sat in the garage. (Hopefully, none of the above is relevant to my current issues, but I’m including it just in case, since this all seems like a pretty big coincidence.)
Fast forward two days to this morning, I reverse my car out of the garage to let my friend pull his in, and notice smoke in the trunk. It’s emanating from the holes in the roof where the extra seatbelts connect (see photos). At this point the car is off, but I disconnect the battery just in case. The smoke doesn’t seem to be increasing in volume, and I can’t find any warm spots when feeling around the ceiling, so I figure it’s a melting wire sheath or similar, and run inside to the computer to start poking around to see what I can find. I should not have done this. Two or three minutes later, I looked out the window and saw much more smoke. The interior of the ceiling had caught on fire (see photos); the light bulb cover for the rear interior lamp had melted off and caught fire to the trunk carpet as well. Luckily, a fire extinguisher was close at hand. Because the battery had already been disconnected, I think the fire must have been burning in the ceiling since I started the car (or possibly since I put it into reverse to back out of the driveway: I had started the car a few times after swapping out the fuse the other day in order to test everything, but hadn’t driven it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if whatever caught on fire was related to the wiring harness for the tail lights—but this is all wild speculation at this point).
Anyway, the shops around here are all closed today, but I’m planning to have AAA tow it to the local dealership tomorrow morning to take a look. Anyone seen anything like this before? Any thoughts or advice? Alternately, any recommendations for shops near Longmont, CO, besides the dealership? If there’s any obvious way I could have nipped this in the bud, please don’t tell me
I’ve been driving my 2006 2.5XT Ltd for a little over six months now and never had any problems with it until recently. Earlier this week, I was parked down in Southern Utah for a few nights while hiking. It got pretty cold out (around 0 °F), and when I started the car up afterwards the radio, AC, and clock were all non-functional. The red backlights of the buttons on the head unit lit up, indicating power, but the rest of the unit was unresponsive and the displays were all blank. After getting the rest of the way to my destination in CO (without heat or radio) and doing some poking around, I determined that these were all connected through fuse 8 (15 A) in the main fuse box; lo and behold, the fuse was broken. After replacing it, everything seemed to be working fine, but I didn’t have anywhere to go so the car stayed sat in the garage. (Hopefully, none of the above is relevant to my current issues, but I’m including it just in case, since this all seems like a pretty big coincidence.)
Fast forward two days to this morning, I reverse my car out of the garage to let my friend pull his in, and notice smoke in the trunk. It’s emanating from the holes in the roof where the extra seatbelts connect (see photos). At this point the car is off, but I disconnect the battery just in case. The smoke doesn’t seem to be increasing in volume, and I can’t find any warm spots when feeling around the ceiling, so I figure it’s a melting wire sheath or similar, and run inside to the computer to start poking around to see what I can find. I should not have done this. Two or three minutes later, I looked out the window and saw much more smoke. The interior of the ceiling had caught on fire (see photos); the light bulb cover for the rear interior lamp had melted off and caught fire to the trunk carpet as well. Luckily, a fire extinguisher was close at hand. Because the battery had already been disconnected, I think the fire must have been burning in the ceiling since I started the car (or possibly since I put it into reverse to back out of the driveway: I had started the car a few times after swapping out the fuse the other day in order to test everything, but hadn’t driven it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if whatever caught on fire was related to the wiring harness for the tail lights—but this is all wild speculation at this point).
Anyway, the shops around here are all closed today, but I’m planning to have AAA tow it to the local dealership tomorrow morning to take a look. Anyone seen anything like this before? Any thoughts or advice? Alternately, any recommendations for shops near Longmont, CO, besides the dealership? If there’s any obvious way I could have nipped this in the bud, please don’t tell me