thatll get you in trouble, leave it unlocked in a bad neighborhood unlocked for a weekend. come monday morning youll be calling the insurance company and the police because the car will be mostly or all gone.

 

Especially after writing on a worldwide forum...

 

Leaving it like that in plain view is bad publicity for MINI USA. I wonder how long the car sat there.

 

Not half as bad as this thread.

 

Ever notice on plane crashes or runway roll-offs any identifying logos and names are covered over? Same reason.

 

Has anyone heard from the OP about the cause yet?

 

Thanks for the concern....It certainly was a traumatic thing to go through..... However just I'd clear up a few things so everyone's on the same page.

1) It's not my car.
2) It's my friend's car and his friend was driving it (not his wife)

Someone mentioned that the emergency brake could have been the cause. I sent an email to my friend but haven't heard back yet....


Hey Richard, you should check this out:




Spins right off and you don't need any tools. The post on the **** is the connecting piece so once the **** comes off, your circuit is cut.

$13.95 + shipping from Mossmini. And you don't have to reuse/replace that nut you broke.

Thanks again for everyone's concerns. I will post as soon as I hear anything about the cause as well as what the deal is on the replacement vehicle.....

 

This is more a comparison between apples and gorillas. To put it simply, the woodstove is designed to host a fire and heat the house. It does that very well. I keep the stoves tuned and cleaned, the chimneys maintained, I am careful of how I burn and dont take it for granted. The same is true of the MINI. I am mindful of how I drive it, I am very picky about maintenance and inspection, and I try not to take things for granted. Now, being that there is concern out there that fires have started, I am not worried that mine will suddenly burst into flames. However, in the areas of the brake controller and the wiring harnesses, I have taken extra steps in these areas. I have inspected and sealed the electrical connector at the ABS/DSC module, I make sure to keep the unit itself clean and I wipe it down with WD-40 to help repel water from the assembly. When I had the header out of the car I also had the heat shield covering the starter and wiring out. I noticed where the shield was rubbing into the harness, modded the shield and added some insulation to the harness. I figure these steps help in some ways to lesses the chances. The reason the battery gets disconnected? There are two. Main reason is that there's a good chance the car is gonna sit for quite a while, and disconnecting the battery keeps it from being drawn dead by the standby current of the electrical systems. Doing this also prevents the primary cause of the underhood fires, which are electrical in nature.

The woodstove is meant to have a fire in it. The MINI, not so much, unless it's in the four little cylinders.

 

How often do you inspect the attic where the chimneys pass thru for damage? Woodstoves fail all of the time. Chimneys break down and fail. Attic fires are the most common result of these failures.

If you feel safer taking those precautions.....great. I don't feel it's necessary nor would I encourage anyone else to do the same.

If you weren't worried about the MINI catching fire you wouldn't be taking those extra steps to satisfy your concerns.

I just think you are over reacting to a very rare problem.

 

Um, isn't WD-40 highly flammable? Wouldn't that be like kindling should there be a spark?

 

First I want to say so sorry to the owner of the car and the driver. What a "bad nightmare". I hope she will be able to get over this incident and not allow it to scar her!

As far as tjtull... you shouldn't join the MiNi community if you don't support the car 100%. Yes..unfortunate. Life happens...sometimes for no reason.

He was simply posting a bad thing that happened and it has turned into a debate. If you you don't trust the car then don't buy the car. I will have this in my mind but in no way will it affect how much I "LOVE" my car and will NOT affect the way I drive my car.

So think about cancelling your order and going to buy another car that has never had ANY issues!!

Sorry to all fellow MiNi owners but I had to say that.

 

Thank you for giving the proper perspective so we can get this thread on the right track.

 

Whoa Shoe! Just read this. That is crazy. I am glad to hear that all are ok. Do let us know what the final outcome will be, if you find out.

 

Hi Guys:

First off I’d like to sincerely thank all the people who expressed their concern and sympathy for my friend, I can’t even begin to tell you how disturbing the thought of her trapped in that car has been, I’ve known this girl for 16 years and she has been going through a very rough time in the past year so this was absolutely the last thing she needed. As tough as the loss of my MINI has been, she lost even more than that, she was in the process of moving from upstate NY and most of her daily possessions, her brand new laptop, cell phone and over 25 years worth of irreplaceable photographs went up in that car! (The remains of her storage bins are what was still smoking in the boot in the pictures) I was told she actually tried to go back to get her stuff out of the car as it was burning; she was still pretty disorientated and did not realize how serious the situation was.

To answer some of your questions, my R56 was less than a year old and aside from a dead battery that was replaced by MINI when I first received the car, it never had any issues at all, it had less than 5,000 miles on it and wasn’t even due for it’s first service yet. I didn’t drive this MINI one tenth as much as my 04’. Since I now live where I work it wasn’t used for a daily commute and sat in it’s garage space unused for two or three weeks sometimes. That’s what bothers me most about this, IF it turns out to be a mechanical failure (and that’s still a big if guys, because of the circumstances of the cars final resting place my insurance company hasn’t even gotten physical possession of the car yet, more on that in a minute) the car had minimal use and wear.

As to what happened that day…OK…take a deep breath…

When the car filled with smoke my friend tried to get it off the road but the Belt Parkway is a crowded piece of highway and she was just at the divider for the on-ramp to the Verrazano bridge which requires you to be in the two left lanes to avoid going to Staten Island, Note: always avoid going to Staten Island. She said the car completely filled with smoke so quickly she couldn’t see anything and was beginning to panic by the time she was moving to the right to pull over, and that’s how she wound up against the guardrail for the on-ramp with the driver side door pinned against the rail. Because the car burned up at the beginning of the on ramp the NYPD that responded were told by the TBTA (Tri-Borough Bridge ad Tunnel Authority) police, that TBTA had jurisdiction over the scene and they actually had the NYPD destroy the accident report they had filled out and confiscate the receipt from my friend while she was still in the ambulance! The TBTA sent one of it’s own vehicles to take the remains of my car over the bridge to Staten Island, they left it about three blocks from their precinct, on the street where I took those pictures then towed it inside the precinct that night, after telling the tow company from MINI Roadside the car had to be taken by the Sanitation Department They kept it for three days, refusing to release it, with a different story given to each tow driver from MINI Roadside each time. I was finally told they held it to do an investigation to see if it caused any damage to their guardrail. After they were done they said they didn’t want it on their property and they had a local tow company take the car who wants to charge my insurance company almost $500.00 to pick up the car so they can start their investigation. Oh, and they wouldn’t take a check from Allstate, they wanted cash. My insurance company asked if I would go to Staten Island and pay cash to release the car and that they would reimburse me the same day for it, last I heard they worked it out and will pick up my MINI on Tuesday.

And my life used to be so simple…

I know a new MINI catching on fire and exploding is a big deal on the boards but please don’t jump to any conclusions yet. I’m a big MINI advocate and love these cars! The insurance company will do its investigation and let me know, it could have been something that got caught in the undercarriage and ignited for all we know. My friend is an experienced driver and was very familiar with the MINI and a witness driving behind her that told me he could see flames coming from the rear wheel area of the car as she hit the guardrail. I will post any information I get from the insurance company as to what could have caused this as soon as I hear from them. Again, thank you to all the people who posted their well wishes to this thread.

 

Thanks for the update, and sorry to hear about all that hassle. You'd think they would be a bit nicer considering all that happened.

 

Surfblue says: I would rather get out, get away and let the car burn. Think about it: Do you really want a Mini that had a good engine compartment, (name the area of your choice) fire etc and then was repaired? I'd rather let the thing burn, pay the deductible and get a new car. Now, if it's in the garage, that's a different story, and there's a big fire extinguisher available there. Anyway, I think the odds of this happening are about as likely as me winning the California lottery. To each his own.

 

What a nightmare, to have the driver side door up against the guardrail. And as all BMW products do, to have all doors automatically lock. I am amazed she was able to get out!

It interesting that there was so much concern about the guardrail. I've been through that sort of thing. I hit a tree sideways, was airlifted to a trauma center with a broken back, and all my insurance company worried about was who owned the tree I'd killed?

 

Most likely far more often than you have done any inspections in the problem areas of MINIs (or just about any other car for that matter). The chimneys get cleaned and inspected every year as a minimum, the stoves automatically get a once-over each time I clean 'em out. The chimney gets additional attention any other time I am on the roof for some reason. Better safe than sorry.

No worry about that. I dont soak the piece in WD-40, I wipe it down instead. The slight residue repels water, there is no liquid left. The real flammability of WD-40 is when it's aerosolized. Between the atomized oil and the propane propellant, that's what makes WD flamethrowers so fun. This is why one of the original reasons for the stuff existing in the first place was as a Water Displacement spray for wet ignition systems.

 

I'm glad she's okay. How can we help her out? If she lost everything, and she's down on her luck, how can we help her out?

 

What a nice thought!

 

Dear Brooklyn,

Thank you for taking the time to post. I'd read about this terrible fire with your poor friend over on another board and had been about to contact Lordoftheflies to find out what had happened. Thank God, fate, luck and whatever else that your friend was not hurt.

Hang in there. I'm sure we all feel for you, as well as your good friend.

 

That is incredibly thoughtful guys! and much appreciated but most of the stuff that could be immediately replaced is being taken care of (she literally lost all of her day to day stuff, makeup, toothbrush,underwear,PJ's) And Im helping her get that, I replaced her iPhone the same day because I felt so bad and she is job-hunting right now so without her laptop its her only mobile connection to the internet, and told her I would give her my Macbook cause the new ones just came out and I'm upgrading. The rest was mostly clothing and those photos which is what she felt the worst about. Some of her friends in Prospect actually took her to Atlantic City with them this weekend just so she could get out and try to unwind, she's been a nervous wreck. She is coming back to my place tonight so I told her I would show her this thread, she couldn't believe when I told her my friend had posted this on NAM and people responded the way they have. You guys are great, thank you again.

Frank

 

So sorry about your car, that is awful. And what your friend went through is even worse. Glad she is ok and hope everything works out for you.

 

YIKES! But hey maybe this time you could get an S? Also, is it just me or is the snow on the roof in one of the shots a bit ironic?

I AM SO GLAD YOU GUYS ARE OK! WHAT A NIGHTMARE! Good luck and don't leave the MINI community!

 

When I was in college in the 70's and worked for UPS,one of their trucks burned in downtown Boston. The first thing the loss prevention guys did was rush out to the scene and cover the UPS logo with tape. Guess that was so the BROWN truck wouldn't get mistaken for a FEDEX truck.