Crankin

A local newspaper story: Burning BMW Damages Townhouse
Excerpts:An engine fire early Saturday destroyed a BMW and spread to a townhouse, causing nearly $150,000 damage. Mr X was in a 2003 BMW parked in front of Street X. The BMW had been idling for about 20 minnutes when the engine caught fire, officials said.
The BMW, with an estimated value of $87,000, was destroyed.

Sounds like a 7 series to me. a quality control check may be in order. Maybe it was that iDrive thing!

internet_mafia

I hear a lawsuit in the works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ajayz

whoa, that is scary, knowing that cars can just instantly catch firelike that. BMW needs to be ready for a big case.

vraa

I'm pretty sure that a bmw won't just catch on fire like that after half an hour. The person had to have been doing something.

MercManiac

How does someone cause an engine fire???...In a new car?

Crankin

That car's a crispy critter! And it did it all by itself. It was definitely an engine fire that caused it.

Dema

Idling for 20 minutes with a/c on at Florida climate? Not so many cars can handle that. I hope that the car was insured, and nobody got hurt.

vraa

I know, this is worse that that crap someone said the Thailand leader or some crap got trapped in a BMW and his body guard had to break the door of or something. Real real stupid people.

MercManiac

Using that logic......then there should be 40,000 to 50,000 car engine fires per day in Florida. Haven't heard about that happening there???

Dema

Good point. Where did you get these numbers? I heard that in Florida people spend most of time in cars because too hot outside. I just curios why 50,000 only?

MercManiac

There's probably ten million trucks and cars in Fl.........say then a .5% rate of engine fire each day for cars idling in the heat.

Bottom line.....cars don't catch fire idling.......except in very rare cases (old unmaintained cars)........with the safety engineering built into the new BMW it should never have happened in any case. The only way the driver could have caused it if it was clear arson.

Then again, heard a lot of people are very unsatisfied with the new 7 series....hmmmm

Ebrigham

I agree. I lived in South FL for many years and spent countless hours idling with the AC on with nary a problem. Not sure where that tidbit came from...

Crankin

The article came from the Tampa Tribune. They said it was an engine fire, as did the local news.

cgmike10

all i know is...i got locked out of my 98 clk320 for about half an hour when it had 60k miles in 80 degree weather. No engine fire, no overheating.