dieslewip

My w211



salvage title Mercedes caught fire im wondering how and if anyone might have a good idea of why. It was about at 178,000 miles

I was driving when i started hearing what sounded like a wooshing air leak when the turbo was kicking in. It was pretty audible from inside the car. Sounded cool cuz turbos are cool but i knew something was wrong obv

After a few minutes of driving it went to limp mode i stopped to check the intercooler hoses, turbo inlet hoses, and airboxes for any air leaks i found nothing out of the ordinary, no holes, no obvious damage.. And ive already replaced all of those parts anyway including all the rubber gaskets for the turbo air intake side and the whole plastic v that goes on the turbo. Also the gaskets on the exhaust side for the turbo were replaced like 20k miles before the fire

I kept driving trying to get home in limp mode when i heard a pop sound coming from under the car (wasnt that loud) and right away saw a good amount of smoke coming from the back. I stopped right away and smoke started coming up from where the gear selector is so seemed like the explosion, ignition or whatever started under there. After that i was outside watching from afar and saw the fire slowly start from under about where the shifter is and it kept going until the whole car was in flames.

Someone stopped and tried to help by using a fire extinguisher when the fire first started but it didn't do crap.

The only mods it had was a dpf and egr delete and the swirl flap motor delete using a resistor. It was salvage title because the front end was hit twice. I did kinda beat on the car didn't take good care of maintenance no often oil changes and i never changed the air filter i don't even know the last time it was changed so i was thinking maybe something got through the filter and hit the turbo and made a fire because of a turbo failure. I did see online that most car fires are from turbos. And it probably wasn't an electrical fire and diesel does not ignite easily like how gas does so maybe I could've prevented a fire by just replacing the air filter or something??? I would like to know because i bought another one that im gonna baby because i love the car and im not trying to let this one burn too. My friend has one and he heard the same stuff i heard and limp mode including a pop sound from under but his didnt light up and its sitting in a lot now.

MJ50

moved to W211 forum...