Accidents : Vehicles catching Fire in India

[cadaver_prad]

Nice smoked taillight. . Its a shame to see a nice car like the RS go up in flames like that.

[ACM]

Somehow since the octavia is a proven car since many years in India and worldwide, and also since this was a few years old car, I get the feeling that this could have happened due to incorrect installation of some extra fitment.

[h@r$h@l]

Saw this Indica not very far from my house last night. The incident took place a few hrs before i passed from there. The ppl around there told me that there was only a driver inside when this happened and he got out right away upon seeing the flames from the engine area. God only knows what happened.

[pratikraveesh]

Is that a petrol or diesel Indica? I have heard a lot of cases where Petrol cars catch fire, is there any reasoning behind it or is it a faulty installation or workmanship? Are petrol cars more prone to catch fire?

[libranof1987]

Originally Posted by pratikraveesh

Is that a petrol or diesel Indica? I have heard a lot of cases where Petrol cars catch fire, is there any reasoning behind it or is it a faulty installation or workmanship? Are petrol cars more prone to catch fire?

I'm sure there's no connection between the fire and it being a petrol/diesel engine.

It could be anything : aftermarket ICE messing up the wiring, loose connections etc.

[atrisarkar]

Just saw a news in NDTV HERE.
It says that the driver leapt and ran away. Sounds strange. Why would he run away?

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by pratikraveesh

Is that a petrol or diesel Indica? I have heard a lot of cases where Petrol cars catch fire, is there any reasoning behind it or is it a faulty installation or workmanship? Are petrol cars more prone to catch fire?

i am not sure about the cars, but petrol is much easier to light up as compared to diesel.

[headbanger]

My Zen caught fire a few days back owing to faulty combination switch. By the time we reached there, significant damage was done though we were lucky that we got just in time. The steering wheel assembly, combination switch and panels around it melted in the fire.

[r_devakumar]

Read the news item in NDTV. Anyone has more details about this?

Mumbai: New car catches fire on expressway

[sreerknair]

Just saw the news. Seems Nano has a competitor now. I am just kidding, don't flame me. Only concern is whether this has something to do with the strike going on in Manesar plant. There were allegations of sabotage and deliberate compromise on the quality of cars by strikers. Hope that's not the case.

[murillo]

There is not much detail in the news report to conclude whether it is the manufacturer's fault or the customer's fault. All it says is that the engine got heated up and blew up in flames. Is this the first instance of fire in Dzire ever? Seems like a one-off occurrence unlike the multiple incidents of fires in Nano. Hence, no judgement can be passed off at this sole instance.

OT: Glad to notice, with this post, I graduate to BHPian from a Newbie

[kiren]

There has been atleast 4-5 cases of Alto,800 & Santros catching fire on the Western Express Highway which I have seen. Burnt cars are a frequent scene on the Thane - Belapur Road and the Shilphata Road, especially during summer.

[rameshnanda]

It should be an one off incident. We need to get more details on how the car got into flames.

[Parm]

was this vehicle on CNG/LPG?

was this vehicle using unrated tyres?

was this vehicle low on engine coolant?

was this vehicle low on engine oil?

as mentioned in the news, the engine got heated up and as soon as the driver stepped out, the car went up in flames!!!

so its the engine oil or coolant which on low levels could have caused the fire?

[ACM]

Saw the burnt car by the side of the road today morning.

There are a lot of reasons while cars can get burn and sadly most of them have to do with changes to the car from the customer side.

Besides this defects to a particular component going unnoticed for too long can also lead to such a situation.

I really doubt the capability of the Indian Car forensic experts to pin point the true cause for such an incident. A manufacturer will obviously not own up to any faults from their side and independent teams will not be as aware of the cars systems and exact possible (micro level) failure points in a particualar vendors cars.

Yep have seen multiple cars of multiple brands on various routes. There should be a centralized organization to track all burnt cars model wise as a ration of sales of that model to track which models are really problematic. Trial by media would not be the right way to go about it.