Electrical fire inside car, BMW assistance no help!!!

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cantfindausername

New member
Joined
Jan 29, 2017
Messages
4
Car is in attached garage charging. Fell asleep and woke up to the whole house smelling like a classic electrical fire, with possible burned/melted plastic added in.

I immediately shut off the breaker and unplugged the charger but it didn't feel hot and appears to be in good physical condition.

Despite being unplugged for over an hour and opening all the doors to the garage and all my house windows to air it out, the smell has been getting worse.

Something is on fire inside the car.

I called BMW assistance and they said it's not an emergency. I told them I strongly disagree that a fire is not an emergency, and they said they would "call me back." Yeah okay, sure.

I am debating calling the fire department. Are these batteries lithium or nimh? Currently sitting outside with my dogs enjoying what is otherwise a surprisingly beautiful night.

The car is completely dead, can't put it in neutral to push it out of the garage. Dealer opens in 5 hrs... guess it's netflix til then :mrgreen:
 
The batteries in the i3 are LiOn. FWIW, there are numerous types of LiOn chemistry batteries and those in the i3 are not your typical cellphone or computer laptop LiOn type. Doesn't mean they can't burn.

Once things get resolved, please let us know what happened.
 
cantfindausername said:
I called BMW assistance and they said it's not an emergency. I told them I strongly disagree that a fire is not an emergency, and they said they would "call me back." Yeah okay, sure.

I am debating calling the fire department. Are these batteries lithium or nimh? Currently sitting outside with my dogs enjoying what is otherwise a surprisingly beautiful night.

I would immediately call the fire department, not BMW (My response is probably too late since it has been a long time). It is better to error on the side of calling them then have an out of control fire in your garage.
 
Given the timeline, the car could be a pile of ash along with the garage. That's assuming the story is true and not someone trying to make problems.

If true, hope we do find out what happened.
 
I confess, I have installed a connected fire alarm in the garage .
i have read and seen some i3's ( one in Italy- rex) and BMWs catching fire.
With all the hi power electricity flow with L2 charger and charging starting at later night, i just sleep better .....
With the garage doors closed, by the time you smell , it will be toooo late .

I advise others to at least install a fire alarm , just to be safer, if not the connected ones.
 
Thanks for your advise, in such situations, ppl can make bad decisions sometimes. You need to give them the confidence to make decisions.

What do you advise about the ---The car is completely dead, can't put it in neutral to push it out of the garage
Will the fire department ppl pull it out or should we call a tow company for that separately ??
viking79 said:
I would immediately call the fire department, not BMW (My response is probably too late since it has been a long time). It is better to error on the side of calling them then have an out of control fire in your garage.
 
cantfindausername said:
Car is in attached garage charging. Fell asleep and woke up to the whole house smelling like a classic electrical fire, with possible burned/melted plastic added in.

. . .
The OP's first post in January 2017 was of which fuse to tap for a dash cam.

Bob Wilson
 
I've held enough customer service jobs to understand why the person on the other end of the phone thought I was an idiot. I probably would have done the same in their shoes.




I didn't call the fire department because we have one of, if not the absolute #1, worst fire departments in the country. They regularly make national headlines for their idiocy, next to zero accountability, etc. If I had called them there's about an 80% chance they would have shown up and started spraying my house with water. Water catalyzes lithium ion battery fires. I would've been screwed. Of course, I kept the breaker off, shut off the natural gas line to the house just to be on the safe side, and felt around the walls and ceiling to make sure there wasn't anything on fire inside my house.

Smoke alarm for the garage is a good plan which I will enact soon enough, as I plan to eventually replace my two dino fueled cars with EVs as well.

BMW called me back shortly after and sent easily the most knowledgeable tow truck driver I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. He had a few tricks to try and get it into neutral but none of them worked. The car is totally, completely dead. I couldn't even get the trunk open. Tow guy slipped some pads underneath the rear tires so it wouldn't fishtail while he dragged it out of the garage.

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have anyone who can diagnose / fix it at the dealership. From what I can tell I'm the first one to encounter this problem lol.
 
Funnily enough, I never did get around to installing a dash cam. It seemed simple enough as a DIY project but when I saw what it actually entailed I decided against it. I did find a guy who does them locally, then totally forgot to follow up...

btw good to see you here Bob. I'm LasVegasaurus on the Prius forums.
 
Working with a volunteer firefighter is where my recommendation came from. He states people wait too long to call and fire is much worse by the time they arrive. They typically try to handle it themselves first before realizing they can't.

Your case is a little special obviously, but what would have bothered me is it kept getting worse and car wouldn't start. 12 V fire can still burn up a car (and nearby structures) . Flipping the breaker was smart.

Obviously you have to make the judgment call of calling fire department or not, and in forum like this where I don't know exact situation and you say that your car is on fire I will state you should be calling the department that deals with fires ;)
 
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