jicl55

Not mine (thank God, knock on something). My buddy had a CL55 2003, 51k mi, bone stock other than some wheels and it caught on fire last night in his garage. Fire investigators are saying it had to be the car. Completely totalled, no one got hurt, but definitely some scary s**t. Only thing was that his parking sensors were acting up (saying there was something there when there wouldn't be), just got it back from service where they replaced a headlight..... electrical short? A f***in nightmare if you ask me.

sprins

Scary sh¡t indeed. I heard a similar one the other day when someones (older) S-Class coupe caugt fire during a drive. Once he noticed the smoke form the dash it was already too late and minutes later the car was (literally) toast

Patentmat

That's funny, I had a 1995 Mark VIII once upon a time that did that EXACT same thing. I bet your buddy makes out pretty good from the insurance as I did with the Mark VIII. (It depreciated about as fast the CL, faster even than insurance seems to realize) Accidental fire huh????

Fraser

I've seen a suprising number of CL pictures on WreckedExotics.com where the caption notes that the car caught fire for no particular reason!

jicl55

Nah, he luved his car, he wouldn't do that and if he did he would have asked me to help him I had a BMW 95 325i that I got in an accident with and it caught on fire..... bad times. Anyway, my buddy is looking for a sl55 or a cls55 for under 40k around San Diego, so if anyone knows, hit me up

HIGH-VELOCITY

Not sure what the root cause is but fires among CL's seem to be quite frequent. Could the common link be the harnesses supplied by Y*&%(I?

BlownV8

I'd be willing to bet that he blew a high pressure ABC hose. Hydraulic fluid is extremely flammable and has a relatively low flash point. All it takes is for it to spray on a hot manifold and poof the car will go up in flames.

There was already one recall on an ABC hose that caused engine fires but from my experience the replacement of that one hose is not nearly enough to fix the issues. The ABC system has issues and needs to be addressed completely. Every high pressure hose should be replaced by the factory with something more durable like solid stainless steel lines or braided stainless reinforced hydraulic hoses.

E55_GT3wheels

wow very scary! Is insurance covering this?

jicl55

Theme for all cl's (including mine) ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS, ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS, ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS...... damn.... still not in Kansas....

jicl55

I sure as hell hope so. Why wouldn't they? AAA is his insurance and they have the car right now. It definitely will be totalled. He's hoping to hear back in the next couple of days.... it just happened last night. Not sure if and when they might find out exactly what caused it. Idk how in depth they even can get with things like this..... and if everything is melted idk if they could even determine what originally caused it..... but I sure am interested for one. The fire investigators so far say that all they know is that it definitely was the car.

BlownV8

Make sure he reports it to the NHTSA. Unless he has been making changes under the hood, you can just about guarantee it is something defective with the car. I'd put 10-1 that it was an ABC hose failure and the hydraulic fluid sprayed on the manifold.

Had the high pressure ABC hose recall been completed on his car? I can't imagine it hadn't since the recall was over a year ago. It would be interesting if it was caused by the same hose that was replaced under the recall.

E55_GT3wheels

keep us posted. I am very interested to see if they can figure out what it was that went wrong and what MB is going to do about it or if they are even interested or will just brush it aside.

jicl55

No mods..... completely stock other than wheels......seeing as how he has had it serviced by the dealer, as far as I understand they are suppose to check if any major recalls have been ordered any time a car goes in and take care of it..... now if they actually checked it or if it had actually been done idk..... for me, i specifically talked to them and asked if all recalls had been taken care of in my car (especially mentioning the ABC problem since I had to replace the ABC pump, but that's a whole different can of worms) and they said yes, mine was up to date..... I can only assume that his had been taken care of.

now as far as MB doing anything about it, I very much doubt it..... first, maybe, they'll be able to determine what caused the fire (if it is really worth their trouble..... again, idk how thorough they are with things like this and how much it matters to them..... it all comes down to $..... if it costs too much $ to find out exactly what went wrong, even if they can, they probably won't). Once it can be determined, then we'll see where we can go from there. My guess.... MB will say something like.... "oh thats horrible..... we've never heard anything like that happening.... so sorry to hear that.... well we do currently do have a fantastic special on........"

benz_addict

sucks to hear this
So the ABC house could of caused the fire? CL55 isn't that the same engine as the E55, S55 and SL55? Which means those might have a 'bad hose' too? What about the V12 cars I'm in the market for an 2005ish S600 and don't want it to catch fire I'm sorry if I went a little OT but this is SCARY so just like to know.

BlownV8

ABC is the type of hydraulic suspension the the CL/S/SL 55, 600s, and 65's. It is not available on the E55.

bzliteyear

i heard similar story a few years ago w/ a friend's friend - SL55 in the garage, caught fire, and 1/2 the car was melted.
Patrick

ieb

from you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_gNpTPLltM

ibeforreal

Same thing here, except I was driving the car when it burst into flames. https://mbworld.org/forums/s-class-w...-up-smoke.html

jicl55

Wow, that's crazy and not to mention scary as hell. Wonder how many other stories are out there similar to this. Just as an update, insurance paid $42k for the car (about 55k miles). Still don't think they ever were able to pinpoint what actually caught fire, but I'll ask my buddy to see if they told him anything recently.

BlownV8

I think insurance is only interested in the fact that you did not cause or start the fire to get money from them i.e. insurance fraud.