Originally Posted by jake_jay

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We were coming home from a morning down at the beach and noticed some black smoke coming from under the hood, there were no warning lights on the dash so I didn’t think it’d be too serious. Jumped out to pop the hood and saw quite a bit of red fluid on the sand… and then the flames under the hood! Jumped on the radio and had a fire extinguisher there within the minute, but it made no difference, the fire just kept going. We tried using our drinking water to get the fire out and then when that didn’t work, we started shovelling sand into the engine bay to try to get the fire out, but it wouldn’t stop. Within 10 minutes the entire engine bay was on fire and after 20 minutes the whole car had gone up.

We contacted our insurance company, who arranged retrieval of the vehicle and then contacted Chrysler, who assured us there would been a full investigation.
Chrysler flew their investigator across the country to take a look at the remains and determine the cause of the fire. After no news for two weeks despite constant phone calls to Chrysler asking for an update the merely told us that the fire wasn’t a manufacturers defect and there was nothing they could do. When I asked what the cause of the fire was I was bluntly told that I “am not privy to that information” and that they were not legally obliged to disclose that information with us.

Our insurance company had already determined the car a write off but after a bit of prodding we convinced them to do their own investigation. Their investigator came to the conclusion that the fire had done too much damage to determine a cause or ignition source

The car was a 2011 Jeep Wrangler which done less than 28,000kms (17,500mi) and still had over a year left on the warranty. The car had no modifications of any kind and had only been serviced by the dealership it was purchased from.

We were absolutely appalled at how we were treated by Jeep. We would have expected that when a product that they sold exploded into a ball of flames there would have been some sympathy, or at least an effort to assist us recuperate our loss, but there was none. We were incredibly lucky that no one was injured in the fire and also that the incident happened in a location where it couldn’t do much damage to the surrounding area.
We were even more shocked to realize that this is a recurring issue with our model of Jeep!!

Originally Posted by DunnyBunny

That doesn't mean he has to prove it. He not the mechanic or technician. It's their responsibility. Either way they are screwing him plain and simple.

Originally Posted by GIJK

Wow, very interesting article. I have a 2011 and this makes me think I should move the fire extinguisher from the rear to the front!