But, the defenses case doesn't hold water.

Is the JK Unlimited rated to tow 3500 lbs or not. I can guarantee that larger tires and mods do not amount to towing 3500 lbs. Granted you would want to turn the overdrive off, but in any case the worst that should ever happen is the transmission fails, not burns the vehicle to the ground. If there is even a possibility that when something overheats, flammable fluids will be discharged onto a ignition source, then precautionary measures should be designed in.

 

Right, larger tires and wheels don't = 3500 lbs... but they DO put abnormal stress on the transmission of the vehicle, versus stock.

If you blew your engine under warranty, and drove into the dealership with 35" mudders and a 4" lift, would you expect your dealership to replace your engine under warranty? I would sure hope that they'd cover it (for your sake) but I would expect them to put up a fight (a la "You were overtaxing the engine by making it consistently turn bigger tires than it was made for...").

If it's supposed to be able to tow 3500 pounds, so be it. But towing 3500 pounds (behind the vehicle, from an engineered fixed point) is not necessarily the same as moving big tires with altered gearing. Additionally, most vehicles have a different (more frequent) maintenance schedule that must be followed if you perform frequent, heavy towing. So, if you're subjecting your vehicle to "abnormal" strain (via lift with big tires) but not maintaining it accordingly, they may get you...

Again, I honestly hope that none of these arguments hold even a drop of water... just throwing the ideas out there so that you have answers ready, should you ever need them!

 

Once again, I agree that if you were putting undo stress on a component, which by the way I don't think is the case here, you could have a component malfunction. That component malfunction should not result in a fire that destroys the entire vehicle and endangers lives though. Failure and overload possibilities must be taken into account during the design phase.

Look at aviation and even NASCAR. Fuel cells are designed to be self sealing in case of an accident or rupture. They could just say that, it should be the operators responsibility not to crash the vehicle, but they have acknowledged that there is a possibility for an accident to occur and have taken steps to try to prevent fire and loss of life.

 

Yessir - there's the clincher that I was looking for.

 

I wonder if these were auto's too

 

If you blew the engine, how could you DRIVE it in to the dealership??? See this holds absolutely no credibility at all. (This was a joke, don't get mad)

 

It's all good.

2k2: That sucks - please keep us posted on what the cause is determined to be... this seems to make 4 or 5 now. You'd THINK that if all 4 or 5 owners put in a complaint with the NHSA, a major investigation would take place... hopefully, before someone is BBQ'd in their new Jeep!

 

WOW...This is the first I'm hearing about this. I don't have kids, but I have dogs...who are basically like my kids! What's the common thread between all these fires? I mean, are they all Saharas, all X's, all Rubicons? stock or modded out? aftermarket lights? Anything at all that can tie all these together? I just went through the whole "Lemon Law" thing with a piece of crap Nissan Pathfinder, and I sure don't want to go through that again.

I'm sure the answers to my questions lie somewhere within this thread, but I figured someone who has hung with it since the beginning could shed some light on the subject for me. Thanks!

 

Pending the pm reply to 2x2, the common link is auto transmission. WOL and several others of us are being led to beleive it is cause by the auto tranny over heating, and spilling tranny fluid out it's dipstick, which then somehow ignites.

I'm curious to see if the guy on the other forum has the auto too!

 

I haven't really addressed this auto transmission thing, but I don't really think it had much to do with my jeep fire. I have been in vehicles that burped transmission fluid and it smokes a hell of a lot. My jeep caught fire without even the faintest smell or sight of smoke. I am thinking it was more gasoline related.

An update: The fire report is about to be released and I will provide this or it's contents here. DC is going out tomorrow to do an investigation. So far, the fire inspector hasn't mentioned a thing about it except a couple of brief e-mails. I know they had to to turn the case over to the police theft people since the jeep could not be identified via VIN number. He said he could not find one. However, the DC inspector told me today that they have identified it so I guess the fire inspector was to busy to let me know.