Can oil & filters change cause enging fire?

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 17:31:52 -0400, Daniel J. Stern wrote:
>
>
>> I'm also wondering should I pursue this with this repair shop chain.
>
> Of course you should!
The question is how to do that. If I just go there and confrant them
with what happened. I doubt that they will admit anything.
Then the burden of proof will be on me. The question is can
anything be proven with enough certainty to go to court against them
provided that the engine compartment is badly burned and it probably
impossible to tell where the fire actually started...

"I.Pavlov" > wrote in message
news
> In your opinion, is it worth while pursuing it with this repair shop or
they
> would just flatly deny any involvement? I also tried consulting attorneys,
> but those guys are after bigger cases for the most part. Besides, as many
> posters mentioned, it would be probably hard to prove direct relation of
> the work performed to the fire and attempts to litigate this may cause
> some additional fees and lawyer's fees besides the car that is already
lost.
> What do you think?
>

I think if you have comprehensive auto insurance, as most people would on
such a young vehicle, that you should file a claim with your agent and
explain
that it took place minutes after leaving an oil change house.

Once your insurance company pays the claim then they own it, and can choose
or not to go after the oil change house. I would think that they would. It
isn't
an issue of whether you can or cannot prove anything. The fact that the
fire started
minutes after you left the oil change place means that there's a
preponderance of
the evidence that a mistake they made caused the fire. It isn't your job to
prove
that they touched something other than the oil.

Sure, it's tough luck on the oil change place if in actuality this was just
a terrible
coincidence. But that is why they carry business insurance on themselves.
Sometimes these things are true conicidences. But that is rare.

If however you don't have comprehensive insurance then your going to have
to suck it up. You should call the oil change shop, and ask who their
insurance
carrier is. If they refuse to give the name to you then call the district
attorney.
Once you get the carrier's name then call the carrier and explain your
situation and
throw yourself on their mercy. Of course they may tell you to blow off, and
if I were you I would pursue it in small claims. I would also pursue it
with the
local news while the story is still fresh.

Ted

Do you have insurance that covers loss/damage to your vehicle due to
fire? if so, file a claim and let the ins. co. deal with it: they've
got more lawyers than you can afford.

Perce


On 08/02/05 08:03 pm I.Pavlov tossed the following ingredients into the
ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

>>>I'm also wondering should I pursue this with this repair shop chain.
>>
>>Of course you should!
>
> The question is how to do that. If I just go there and confrant them
> with what happened. I doubt that they will admit anything.
> Then the burden of proof will be on me. The question is can
> anything be proven with enough certainty to go to court against them
> provided that the engine compartment is badly burned and it probably
> impossible to tell where the fire actually started...

"I.Pavlov" > wrote in message
news
> On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 17:28:35 -0400, Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> >
> > Engine oil is not as difficult to ignite as you seem to think.
> Could the engine be hot enough after driving for five minutes to
> ignite it if it was not working for almost two hours before that?

Yes. By the way, you can easily duplicate this experiment. Take
a car and drive it until it's good and hot. Shut it down and let it
sit for 2 hours. Start it up and drive for 5 minutes then stop, and take
an eyedropper of oil and squirt a few drops on the exhaust manifold
and see what happens.

> Also fire dept. extracted the oil probe after putting out the fire.
> It indicated there was oil in the engine.

Meaningless. Suppose for example that there was a pinhole in the
oil filter. Oil squirting out of that at high pressure could create a fog
that could flash ignite, then touch off the battery.

Ted

On Tue, 2 Aug 2005, Bob Shuman wrote:

> In answer to your question, I most certainly do know what the fuel rail
> looks like. It seems presumptuous of you to assume I do not by asking
> this question.

Not in the slightest. Your suggestion that the parts monkey at Quik-E-Loob
might have "knocked the fuel rail loose while changing the air filter" was
a very strong indication that you know nothing more than that there is
such a thing as a fuel rail.

On Tue, 2 Aug 2005, I.Pavlov wrote:

> >> I'm also wondering should I pursue this with this repair shop chain.

> > Of course you should!

> The question is how to do that. If I just go there and confrant them
> with what happened. I doubt that they will admit anything.

Well, sure, the very shop you took your vehicle to will probably deny all.
But, these places cause enough problems that Corporate usually keeps a
fairly large insurance fund around to deal with them. I'm sure the place
you went will supply you -- cheerfully or jeerfully -- with contact info
for Corporate HQ, or you can hit Corporate's website to find out where to
send your letter.

Fires get investigated all the time, and for the right expert, it can be
much easier than seems logical to pinpoint the proximate and
contributing causes of
the fire.

On Tue, 2 Aug 2005, I.Pavlov wrote:

> Engine oil is not as difficult to ignite as you seem to think.
> Could the engine be hot enough after driving for five minutes to
> ignite it if it was not working for almost two hours before that?

It's not *terribly* likely, but it is possible.

> Also fire dept. extracted the oil probe after putting out the fire. It
> indicated there was oil in the engine.

This proves nothing.

> Also there was no lights indicating that something was wrong.

This proves nothing.

> > Do you even know what a fuel rail *looks* like? It's not something that
> > can be "knocked loose while changing the air filter".

> I don't have any idea what it is. Is it close enough to air filter to
> accidentally damage it while changing the air filter?

No.

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 17:11:36 -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

>
> "I.Pavlov" > wrote in message
> news >
>> In your opinion, is it worth while pursuing it with this repair shop or
> they
>> would just flatly deny any involvement? I also tried consulting attorneys,
>> but those guys are after bigger cases for the most part. Besides, as many
>> posters mentioned, it would be probably hard to prove direct relation of
>> the work performed to the fire and attempts to litigate this may cause
>> some additional fees and lawyer's fees besides the car that is already
> lost.
>> What do you think?
>>
>
> I think if you have comprehensive auto insurance, as most people would on
> such a young vehicle, that you should file a claim with your agent and
> explain
> that it took place minutes after leaving an oil change house.
>
Another one of my mistakes is that I have only liability insurance on
this vehicle. But I went to this repair shop nonetheless today, which is
an automotive department of big and respectable department stores chain,
and talked to the manager of the automotive. I asked him why it took so long
to change the air filter and was there any problem doing it. - I mentioned
in another message in this thread that I had to wait about half an hour
extra, while I observed mechanic doing something under the hood all
this time between the engine and the battery, to the left of the battery.
He said he is aware of some difficulties that technician had replacing
the air filter since, as he said, "it is located not as on other cars"
and is "difficult to replace" and that in fact technician reported that
difficulty and that somebody else was sent to help him.
I asked the manager why they didn't tell me of the difficulties, to which
he didn't answer. All this took place after I said that there was a problem
with the car after the repair, but I didn't say what exactly the problem
was, but at this point he asked me what it was. I told him about the fire.
He looked astonished, but on the other hand in the conversation before
this point he admitted the difficulty and lack of knowledge by the
mechanic regarding the location of the air filter and its replacement.
Now the interesting part: the location where I first seen the fire when I
stopped and opened the hood, was the left side of the battery, where they
claimed the air filter was.
I checked the picture in owner manual and sure enough there is black
plastic lid at that location, but at the point when I opened the hood and
seen the fire and dripping plastic on the left side of the battery that lid
wasn't there at all and that whole place was sort of empty.
I don't know how it could have happened, but it looks like the fire
had first started at the air filter contrary to the previous discussion
in this thread about oil or fuel leak causing it. I even went to the tow
company parking lot where the vehicle is stored, looked at the engine again
and made pictures.

This poses the new question: Can the air filter catch fire if incompetently
replaced or if wrong model is used? I heard the engine backfire mentioned
as possible reason for something like this. Does anybody have any
information?

Another thing that I will have to do is to find an expert, that could give
a conclusion what caused the engine fire and whether it is related to the
air and oil filter change.
What remains to be seen is whether Chrysler dealership will agree to give
such an expert opinion. It is probably the insurance company that would
normally do such expert appraisal, but I mentioned that I don't have
comprehensive, so I'll have to find the expert myself.

Many thanks to you and other participants for valuable
advice and information.

IP.

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 23:24:51 -0400, Daniel J. Stern wrote:

> Fires get investigated all the time, and for the right expert, it can be
> much easier than seems logical to pinpoint the proximate and
> contributing causes of
> the fire.
I agree - it is probably much easier for the expert then it seems for the
layman. I'll try to get the expert opinion tomorrow.

See also my other message in this thread with
Message-Id: >
About the possible connection of air filter replacement, not oil filter
as was previously discussed and as I initially thought.

IP.

"I.Pavlov" > wrote in message
news
> On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 17:11:36 -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
> >
> > "I.Pavlov" > wrote in message
> > news > >
> >> In your opinion, is it worth while pursuing it with this repair shop or
> > they
> >> would just flatly deny any involvement? I also tried consulting
attorneys,
> >> but those guys are after bigger cases for the most part. Besides, as
many
> >> posters mentioned, it would be probably hard to prove direct relation
of
> >> the work performed to the fire and attempts to litigate this may cause
> >> some additional fees and lawyer's fees besides the car that is already
> > lost.
> >> What do you think?
> >>
> >
> > I think if you have comprehensive auto insurance, as most people would
on
> > such a young vehicle, that you should file a claim with your agent and
> > explain
> > that it took place minutes after leaving an oil change house.
> >
> Another one of my mistakes is that I have only liability insurance on
> this vehicle. But I went to this repair shop nonetheless today, which is
> an automotive department of big and respectable department stores chain,
> and talked to the manager of the automotive. I asked him why it took so
long
> to change the air filter and was there any problem doing it. - I mentioned
> in another message in this thread that I had to wait about half an hour
> extra, while I observed mechanic doing something under the hood all
> this time between the engine and the battery, to the left of the battery.
> He said he is aware of some difficulties that technician had replacing
> the air filter since, as he said, "it is located not as on other cars"
> and is "difficult to replace" and that in fact technician reported that
> difficulty and that somebody else was sent to help him.
> I asked the manager why they didn't tell me of the difficulties, to which
> he didn't answer. All this took place after I said that there was a
problem
> with the car after the repair, but I didn't say what exactly the problem
> was, but at this point he asked me what it was. I told him about the fire.
> He looked astonished, but on the other hand in the conversation before
> this point he admitted the difficulty and lack of knowledge by the
> mechanic regarding the location of the air filter and its replacement.
> Now the interesting part: the location where I first seen the fire when I
> stopped and opened the hood, was the left side of the battery, where they
> claimed the air filter was.

> I checked the picture in owner manual and sure enough there is black
> plastic lid at that location, but at the point when I opened the hood and
> seen the fire and dripping plastic on the left side of the battery that
lid
> wasn't there at all and that whole place was sort of empty.
> I don't know how it could have happened, but it looks like the fire
> had first started at the air filter contrary to the previous discussion
> in this thread about oil or fuel leak causing it. I even went to the tow
> company parking lot where the vehicle is stored, looked at the engine
again
> and made pictures.
>

While everything is fresh, sit down and write EVERYTHING DOWN, the
date, the time, the names of the people you talked to, the names of the
techs at the oil change place, what they said, every last thing.

> This poses the new question: Can the air filter catch fire if
incompetently
> replaced or if wrong model is used? I heard the engine backfire mentioned
> as possible reason for something like this. Does anybody have any
> information?
>

I don't think so. However, being as it is near the battery, it is possible
that
somehow one of the metal filter hold-down-clips might not have been
snapped back on to the filter box, maybe fell off, and somehow got wedged
into the positive battery cable and grounded it out against the frame. That
would dump a huge current into the battery cable, heating it up, causing the
cable to catch
fire, and the rest is history.

Ted

> Another thing that I will have to do is to find an expert, that could give
> a conclusion what caused the engine fire and whether it is related to the
> air and oil filter change.
> What remains to be seen is whether Chrysler dealership will agree to give
> such an expert opinion. It is probably the insurance company that would
> normally do such expert appraisal, but I mentioned that I don't have
> comprehensive, so I'll have to find the expert myself.
>
> Many thanks to you and other participants for valuable
> advice and information.
>
> IP.
>