Lessons learned from 8-month old '21 JLR 2.0L catching fire (fire extinguisher, buy-back, insurance)

[Wabujitsu]

Reminds me of an Army story.

A few decades ago I was in an Army convoy, driving a deuce-and-a-half, with a fresh private riding shotgun. Suddenly, flames burst from under the hood, licking and streaming along the private’s side of the vehicle. He screamed like a little girl and snatched his arm in.

I pulled off the road and didn’t turn off the vehicle. It was running and flaming.

As I popped both hood latches another Soldier ran up from a vehicle behind me with a fire extinguisher. We threw the hood up, he sprayed it into submission, we closed the hood, and I jumped back in and pulled out onto the road.

The private looked at me in horror and asked, “Sergeant, are we gonna die?”

I said, with a neutral tone, “Maybe.”

It was a diesel leak. You cannot kill those old deuces.

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[LCW]

Wow - glad FCA took care of this properly in the end. Even though 3 months is a bit ridiculous.

I have an Element 100 fire extinguisher rod thing. Heard good things and they last longer than a small extinguisher apparently. Never used so who knows.

OP - did the fire with the 2.0 lead you to get a 3.6 as a replacement?

 

[davewald]

Wow - glad FCA took care of this properly in the end. Even though 3 months is a bit ridiculous.

I have an Element 100 fire extinguisher rod thing. Heard good things and they last longer than a small extinguisher apparently. Never used so who knows.

OP - did the fire with the 2.0 lead you to get a 3.6 as a replacement?

Not at all. The *only* reason I have a maxed out JLR with the 3.6 is because I had to return my first one to Stellantis in stock condition and quickly. That meant buying another one, taking the suspension, bumpers, sliders, wheels, etc. off of it and putting them on the old one. There was only one 2-door Rubicon in the 3-state region where I live. That's what I have now. The dealer that I bought it from had sympathy for my plight, and sold it to me for just under MSRP (this was in the middle of the supply chain craziness, with $10K ADMs). I brought it home on a Friday afternoon, and on Saturday morning I started stripping parts off of it and swapping with the first one. Fun times.

25,000 miles later, and these three "trophies" in the last year and it has been perfect:

 

[swang]

Dave, where did you have your fire extinguisher mounted on the Jeep that burned?

 

[davewald]

Dave, where did you have your fire extinguisher mounted on the Jeep that burned?

Roll bar in the back. I’m using a Warn holder plus a bit more Velcro.

 

[Heimkehr]

Reminds me of an Army story.

A few decades ago I was in an Army convoy, driving a deuce-and-a-half, with a fresh private riding shotgun.

<snip>

One of my barracks roommates worked 3rd shift at our squadron's Vehicle Maintenance shop. A new one had been constructed during our tenure on base, and he told me to come over late on a Friday night for a free tour. So, I did.

While there, he unlocked a storage yard marked "WRM" and pulled out a new duece-and-a-half and a new HMMWV (this being the 80s, the Humvee really was new). We then, ahem, "field tested" both vehicles by driving them at their screaming top speeds of 55 mph through the narrow B roads of rural England after midnight.

If the deuce had any suspension, it was in name only. And the Humvee should have included headsets; that 6.2L V8 diesel made it well-nigh impossible to hear each other at almost any speed.

Good times.

P.S. -- WRM meant War Readiness Material. As it concerned my squadron, they were ground vehicles that were maintained by the USAF in new or near-new condition for immediate deployment as reliable assets as geopolitical conditions may have required. We simply confirmed the reliable functioning of two such assets that night.

 

[Pig-Pen]

Just an FYI...
From what I understand home owners insurance usually doesn't cover vehicles no matter what.
I had my insurance agent specifically state they wouldn't cover my old Jeep even when it was parked inside the garage. Even if the garage started on fire first and the Jeep was collateral damage.

This. I was a home owners adjuster. Any licensed vehicle was excluded in the policy (check your exclusions). I know we covered stuff like small tractors etc. i dont recall if they had to be parked inside a dwelling. But definitely not streetable vehicles that needed to be insured via car insurance.

If your tree falls on a neighbors car your liability portion of HO will cover it but if it falls on your own car call your car insurance.

Besides, filing an HO claim is the last thing you want to do. I would advise people to save it for the big stuff. People would file a claim for $1k lol. “Well i have zero deductible”. Murphys law, six months later you have a water leak that causes $50k in damage and now your rates are skyrocketing or youre being cancelled (which leads to higher rates).

Fwiw if your car insurance covered a total loss from a fire and then was able to subrogate successfully from the manufacturer they would not raise your rates.

 

[NWJeepr]

Roll bar in the back. I’m using a Warn holder plus a bit more Velcro.

Would you be willing to post a pic? I've got a 2.5lb strapped to the roll bar (driver's side) in the back and it's always been on my mind that it's only a 2.5lb. It's better than nothing, but I'm also curious what a 4-5lb looks like strapped back there visually. Any issues with it?

 

[davewald]

Would you be willing to post a pic? I've got a 2.5lb strapped to the roll bar (driver's side) in the back and it's always been on my mind that it's only a 2.5lb. It's better than nothing, but I'm also curious what a 4-5lb looks like strapped back there visually. Any issues with it?

Works great with both the hard top and Mopar soft top.

 

[yokramer]

Fascinating. I never heard from Stellantis about what they found, or if they even investigated it after it was shipped back to them. I believe that reporting it to the NHTSA probably caused them to cut through the usual bs and respond quickly since the engineer they sent said he is responsible for dealing directly with NHTSA. He confirmed what I had heard that any serious damage to the wiring harness is almost always an automatic total. BTW, mine was (is) always parked inside when not being driven,, so minimal exposure to leaves and such. The tag could have been the culprit, though.

Reporting shit to federal agencies works.

Spectrum kept screwing us around with our internet speeds. We were paying for like 300 down and only getting 100. Reported it to the FCC and within 3 days we had heard from the Regional Tech guy and had someone out fixing it within a week.

 

[BDinTX]

Would you be willing to post a pic? I've got a 2.5lb strapped to the roll bar (driver's side) in the back and it's always been on my mind that it's only a 2.5lb. It's better than nothing, but I'm also curious what a 4-5lb looks like strapped back there visually. Any issues with it?

Here's a pic from a 4 door:

 

[AZpueblo]

Here's my 2.5 lb Amerex mounted on the roll bar in my Firecracker 4xe Rubicon. After reading this I'm considering subbing it out for a 5Lb unit. Also, I chose Purple K (rather than dry chem), which is only B:C rated, which is oil/gas/electrical as it's recommended specifically to be more effective for vehicle fires (which are typically fuel/electrical in origin). The pic shows the previous A:B:C that I had in there.

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