[2002]

Story about parked BMW self igniting:

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/mysterious...opstories.html

[gde061]

Interesting. I was not aware of this as a long term problem.

As a retired lawyer, I'll give you my take: the car is too complex to get a definitive expert from outside to identify a cause without a massive study. So it is a game of chess. The typical plaintiff lawyer doesn't want a case they have to do lots of work on unless they can smell a big settlement. Unless there is a class action, no lawyer will go on contingency for this case, and even the ones who would take it would expect to put in a couple hours and get a nominal settlement like an adjusted value of the car. A client insisting to go to trial would be told to put up a ridiculous retainer and discouraged (consequential damages like burned down house might be waived by the warranty terms and conditions -- it would depend on the jurisdiction and particular hearing authority), even though $50+k seems like a lot, it's not enough for a typical lawyer to take the case to trial -- they might put in 100s of hours plus expenses. They want to see six figure settlements for that -- which is why they all flock to medical malpractice -- doctors are easy targets and a guy in a wheelchair is very sympathetic.

This is why you hear the NJ lawyer saying he is pushing people who contact him to put complaints in to NHTSB. As soon as NHTSB issues a "finding" of fault, he will be first one to sign up every plaintiff he can because then the case is much more likely to pay off for him. NHTSB is a bureaucratic, political administrative agency and I really don't know if they have the kind of engineers on staff who can fully break down a complex modern car, especially if they don't have access to the source code. Rather than figure it out themselves, they will make threats by promising reprisal if BMW withholds information. As long as BMW can say it "didn't know", then those reprisals can't be issued. So BMW's lawyers will tell them to play as dumb as possible, do as little work to investigate the cars as possible, and fire anyone who starts to write memo's about what could cause the fires.

Now for putting on my mechanic/engineer hat. The modern car has many persistent system's that behave in ways that are not so well documents. Fans and pumps that kick in on their own. Alarm systems that run self-diagnostics. "Always on" USB ports and even surface phone chargers. All this "innovative" stuff could put a car on fire.

For a fire, it's always fuel and spark. If the spark comes from an electronic component that explodes (e.g, rechargeable battery, bad capacitor, etc.) the fuel can be any kind of combustible (e.g., carpet, plastic dash, etc.). If it's an electric arc in the wiring system, it more than likely is gasoline or vapor (battery, gasoline, oil). The key is whether it's the same pattern in other cases of BMW fires.

Which brings back the lawyer hat. Who is going to hire a professional fire investigator -- other than the DA who wants to make a political statement when someone is killed? The NHTSB could, but the real deep pocket player with an interest is the insurer. In case of a fire in a garage, your home-owner insurance, NOT your car insurance, is going to be on the hook. Fire in the driveway with no comprehensive insurance... they don't care. And when finally there is a case where the insurer has to pay, what is going to be an easier road for them -- sue BMW or point to something the owner did and deny the claim. Left your car in the sun with the windows closed? Your fault. Installed an after-market battery? Your fault. Didn't change your oil at exactly 5,000 miles. Your fault! Until a single insurer starts to see many many cases to put them where they have no reason to deny the claim, they, just like the lazy plaintiff lawyer who is waiting for someone else to find the smoking gun, aren't going to push it onto the 10,000 lb gorilla.

A final thought -- when we enter a world where the car manufacturer gets to dictate that you only use their OEM batteries and other electrical components, it will be a giant step backward for the auto industry and consumers. The current situation where in order to change the battery, you must have a BMW tool that will register the battery and code any changes in the battery capacity is really disturbing. Car makers think this is great, because they will lock in a monopoly on the after-market. Regulators and politicians think this is great because they can't wait to see the American romance with the car and it's free-wheeling live anywhere, go anywhere, work anywhere culture be replaced with "efficient" life in a city, riding a bike, and sitting at a wine bar listening to poetry as the pinnacle of manhood. That is where we are heading the more black-box gets put into the cars without A REQUIREMENT that the manufacture disclose in detail what the operational parameters are, including the code and the tools needed to fix it provided not at exorbitantly inflated prices, but FREE to customers as part of mandatory post-sale support. Right to repair is the key. So if your upset by the situation with cars that spontaneously combust, write your Congressman or Congresswoman and let them know you want right-to-repair as a national policy.