My truck had been sitting for a couple days. My buddy and I walked out to it tonight to go out to eat and I opened the door and immediately smelled burnt plastic. I figured I left my windows cracked and the wind carried the smell into it. Then I saw black ash on my dash, arm rest, headliner, and window sills. Looked under the hood and nothin. Looked under the dash and nothing. Then I looked under my drivers seat and my nalgene bottle was all melted and deformed. I had my buddy look and he went to pick up the bottle and sparks flew.

We called the fire dept to make sure the carpet and **** wasnt still burning underneath or anything. They came and pulled the bottle away, and I now have a nice 8" diameter burn hole in my carpet. It is ash down into the insulation of the carpet. My power seat wires shorted out and started a smouldering fire.

The fire dept said if we hadnt decided to go out to eat, that I would have a burned down truck. They predicted it had been smouldering for a couple of days now.

My question is...I know my truck is a 2000, but wires still shouldnt be shorting out and causing a fire in a 10 year old truck, right?!!! I am going to the Dodge dealership tomorrow to ask about recalls or faulty wiring issues that might have them replace all the burned stuff. My truck is in awesome shape and it sucks that this **** happened! If Dodge wont cover it, Im not paying a $500 deductible for my insurance to cover it, so I might find a manual seat out of a junk yard.

Sorry for the long explaination....has anyone else had something like this happen?

 

Don't expect that dodge will do anything for you.... Your truck is long out of warranty for those particular parts.....

That said..... You might get lucky. If you have a good relationship with your dodge dealer, go in, and talk to the service manager. Explain what happened, and see what he suggests. If he is not helpful, call Dodge directly. There has to be a customer service number listed somewhere...... On occasion, they will do some truly bizarre things.... Like fix a problem that has been out of warranty of better than 7 years....

Good Luck.

 

Thanks, I figure I will give it a shot. I mean, wiring shouldnt just catch on fire, especially wiring that is out of the way and protected by wiring loom. If nothing else, I will try and find a manual seat out of another truck.

 

Sounds like mice...

 

I haven't heard of anything involving the seat wiring, maybe something got shoved under there at some point and skinned a wire enough for it to shoot a spark out.
That does suck though, at least it didn't get the whole truck.

 

that does suck man, good thing you went outside

 

You know, You would think it would blow a fuse first? If it made that much heat it HAD to be pulling some kind of amperage. I just cant get my head around the fact that you had a elecrical fire that was on a fuse and if i recall its a 15amp? Something doesn't sound right. Still dont explain the sparks. Just my 2 cents.

 

This is my nalgene bottle. I will take a pic of the hole in the carpet and bare wires. This bottle is the only thing that has been under my seat, and I cant imagine this doing any harm, especially with the wire loom on the wires.... I guess stranger things have happened. Im just glad I still have a truck! This is my baby. I just got her lookin and sounding like I want.

 

Yeah...I dont smoke or anything, so no ashes or cherry fell down there. I pulled the power seat fuse...it was a bigger looking fuse with a metal casing. Im stumped.

 

iv seen seat wiring get damaged all the time and short out..somebody puts something under the seat and it pushes the wires up into the track you move the seat for some reason and the track pinches the wiring causing a short..and those metal fuse's if i remember correctly are a type of circuit breaker...