My weekend. [Long Story]

Just a little story I thought id share. Lets just say, im not too happy. Im not gonna get all pissed off, since that wont help matters.

Yesterday (Saturday) morning, I was on my way to the local hardware store to get some wood glue so I could work on making the box for my new subs.

On the way there, I noticed something wasnt quite right with the car. I cant explain exactly what it was, just kinda like a gut feeling. Anyways, I got the glue, and on my way home the car was starting to studder on acceleration, and the "Check engine" light came on. I decided that I would pull the codes when I got home. I was about 10Km from my place when the car was hardly running at all, and I thought i smelled smoke, and not the usuial oil smell. I glanced over to the floor on the passenger side... and to my horror, there was smoke coming out of the dash on that side. :eek:. I pulled over right away, and shut the car off. By this point, the smoke was billowing out from under the passenger side dash. I got out, ripped open the hood quickly, and got out my multitool and got the battery disconnected. I could see from the engine bay that there was fire on both sides of the firewall. I got my mini fire-extingusher that I carry in the trunk (Thank god for that) and I was able to get the fire out inside the car, and I used a blanket I had in the back seat to smuther the fire under the hood. Next, I checked my boxers for signs of leakage. :P

I then gave a friend a call on my cell, and he brought another extingusher and he towed me to my place, where my poor car rests now. I feel bad for the poor car. Its just sitting there in my driveway until tomorrow when I will tow it to the local dealer.

Cause of fire: My best guess by looking at this burnt mess, is that a wire from my fuel pump relay, got stripped by rubbing against another part for years, and shorted the relay packs connected near it, including the headlight relays.

Damage: I throughly checked out the car. About a 1ft sq piece of carpet is burned on the passenger side floor, a piece about 3in sq of the dash is melted, smoke damage. But the worst part is, the main wiring harness that connects the wiring from the interior, to under the hood is a big mess of melted, fused together and burned crap. Under the hood, the fuel pump relay is melted, and that same wiring that runs through the firewall is cooked about 1/2 ft of it. (27 wires :bloated: ) The main computer seems to have escaped fire damage, but some shorted wires and other crap may have burned it out as well. I dont know at this point. I will be taking it to the dealer tomorrow, where they will have to replace the entire passenger side wiring harness, and install a new fuel punp relay, and diagnose / repair various blown fuses and diagnose my computer. I checked the fuse block, and 14/28 fuses are blown :eek:

Ill let you know what kinda $$ the dealer quote for me. Im guessing ~1K and maybe more depending on the condition of the computer.

Now.....How was everyone elses weekend? :(

:eek: :eek: :eek: Damn Rich, I'm sorry.. that is the making for one hell of a bad weekend http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/images/icons/icon13.gif I'm awful sorry to hear about all that.

If it makes you feel any better, both my cars are acting up, one way or another. The Integra is not acting up too badly.. I changed the worn tensioner pulleys for both the alternator and supercharger with new polyeurathane units, and then retightened my belts. This gave me some very enjoyable boost, but in a single 80 to 110 mph run at 15 psi, I snapped the belt :( And then yesterday, I swapped headers with a buddy of mine (he has an Integra GS), and because of custom fabrication fitment issues, the header now makse my resonator vibrate against my undercarriage, intermittently at any rpm while driving, and most of the time while idling. Fantastic...

The Marquis is another story. Since last Sunday, the thing has been idling erratically, rpms rising and falling, and making miniscule power. We had had some moderatly heavy rain the night before last Sunday, so I thought perhaps it had gotten some water in the gas tank. Three bottles of dry gas and numerous road miles at low speeds (on uphills, as bad as 15 mph in 65 zones, in the shoulder, with flashers) later, I decided the problem must reside elsewhere. I changed a bunch of spark plug wires, fooled around with the distributor extensively, blah blah blah blah blah, what a pain in the ass. Still nothing has helped her any. SO, most of my plans for today revolve around more spark, fuel, and electircal trobleshooting to see if I can't sniff out the problem (as my friend Craig said, it's probably one STUPID little thing that is causing all this trouble). Just really, really annoying :rolleyes:

But, not as bad as what happened to yours, man. Good luck.

:eek: :eek2: Hey Rich sorry to hear about your mota, hopefully the dealers won't charge U an arm and a leg ....:rolleyes: but somehow I doubt it.......

I feel for you man. i let my check engine light go for a while, i thought it was just becuase the lights were acting up because sometimes my guage light doesn't come on at night. then when i took it to the shop for an oil change he said it needed a new engine. so 3500 bucks later my truck is running fine.:mad:

Sorry to hear about your car. Sounds like you had about as much fun on the weekend as I did. :(

Wow. Atleast it sounds like you kept your cool. That probably saved you a TON more than you might think right now. I hope that your trip to the dealership goes better than expected.


Didn't anyone have a good weekend??? :o

Originally posted by saturntangerine
Didn't anyone have a good weekend??? :o Actually, besides what I consider minor car problems, the weekend was pretty good. Saw a hockey game last night that went into overtime, at which time the home team (Hartford Wolf Pack) won, and I got to meet a fellow Dee Snider Radio listener at the game. Then, my ex-girlfriend, who I went to the hockey game with, cleaned my apartment for me!! Sure, that's embarassing, but I helped she and her roommate, thanked them profusely when it was done, and hey, the place is damn clean now. And I had a nice dinner with my buddy Jay (not jay@af) this evening. Despite the fact that we were all jipped today with this lousy 23-hour day, I'd say all in all it was a good weekend! :sun:

Originally posted by saturntangerine
Didn't anyone have a good weekend??? :o I did. :wave:
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/t40239.html

If it makes you feel any better my garage bunt down and destroyed my three cars:(





















Actualy it didn't but it makes you feel better right???????;)

Well, so far I have no clue as to what its going to cost to get this fixed. I got the car towed to the dealer today, and they had a look.

It isnt all broken at least. One of the mechanics took a look at some stuff when it was sitting outside, as they were too lazy to push it in. He went "uh huh, yup, uh huh" jumpered 2 ports on the computer and popped in a couple new fuses, and they were able to fire the car up, and drive it into the shop. I was surprised that they were able to bring her to life so easily. Its amazing how messed up some cars can be, and you can still drive them, and then others that 1 tiny thing goes wrong, and the car is dead.

There were still a ton of problems with it. To name a few:

No speedometer signal
No Temp Gauge signal

Check Engine on:
No Idle Air Control data
No O2 sensor data
No ESC data

ECM may still be damaged.

I should be getting a call either today (Shop closes in 1hr, so i doubt it) or tomorrow, to let me know what its gonna cost to replace wires and diagnose all remaining problems. I went to the local scrap yard today, and got some carpet and a couple pieces of dash of which mine were melted, and I can replace those on my own.

Still keeping my fingers crossed at this point. :)

Originally posted by HuMMerMan
He went "uh huh, yup, uh huh"

ROfl! Sorry to laugh in the wake of this unfortinate experience, but the mental picture that was brought to mind is funny as hell.


Any how, sorry to hear about your car's plight, it sucks being carless... It's happened to me a few times :(

Originally posted by Gonthrax


ROfl! Sorry to laugh in the wake of this unfortinate experience, but the mental picture that was brought to mind is funny as hell.


Its ok. Everyone knows what he was thinking

"We are gonna take this poor SOB for every single cent he has"

I hope I can bring a little ray of happiness back in to the world. I skied Tuckerman's on sunday. from 300 ft above the headwall. it was intense. 75-80% grade. sweet stuff in two feet of powder. sorry about your car though. and hey, on the bright side how bad could it be if it runs...right...:confused: :( :confused:

Originally posted by Jimmy_11_cars
If it makes you feel any better my garage bunt down and destroyed my three cars:(





















Actualy it didn't but it makes you feel better right???????;)

If it did boy would we all here about it




I can honestly say I had a great weekend of doing nothing

Originally posted by fearless_simian
I hope I can bring a little ray of happiness back in to the world. I skied Tuckerman's on sunday. from 300 ft above the headwall. it was intense. 75-80% grade. sweet stuff in two feet of powder. :eek: :eek: :eek: OH MY LORD!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

I see where the "fearless" portion of your name comes from. I've been to Tuck's in the summer only, and the very thought of skiing down it was about enough for me to crap my pants. I don't know how extreme skiiers do it (shaking head). Well, nice going man.

Rich, I feel for you man. I hope it works out all right :)

Ah Hummer mate! I know exactly how you feel, Iv had almost exactly the same thing happen to my Kit Car.
The Wireing to the Side lights earthed out on a broken wing surport, and it since the car used a pre Fuse box Triumph herald loom it set fire to all the wiring under the dash!
I was just driving along when the car and lights just died, and the Fiberglass dash started Glowing orange! :eek:

Forunatly, like you I also carry an extingwisher, and was able to put it out. And the repair bill was a lot less, in fact it was free. Just some friends time and wire, rewire all the under dash, and this time add 5 fuses. :cool:


But when you do get the repiar bill just think how bad it would have been if you hadnt been carrying an extingwhisher.
Instead of towing the car to get fixed, you would have been able to watch it burn out then go for a ride to the crusher. :)

HOORAY!!!!

My car is FIXED!

I got a call around 1 today that the car was fixed. I thought to myself, "bull$hit, it cant be fixed already..." But I humored them and went to the shop, and low and behold it was fixed :eek: They had no other customers today, so they had like 4 guys working on my car at once! A new wiring harness was installed, some other wires were spliced and repaired, and a new throttle position sensor, and fuel pump relay was installed.

It still smells like burned plastic inside, and there is still the burned and melted carpet and plastic, but its running good, and can still give me a grin when the gas pedal is on the floor. :D

I took it out for a "45 min shakedown cruse", and just got back from that. The bill.....$600. I wish it never happened in the first place, but I couldnt have asked for a better or cheaper repair job. Props to my local Chev dealer.

I picked up a couple of air fresheners today, and put them in the car. I hope that helps to get rid of the burned smell. Does anyone else know how to get rid of harsh smells like that?

Originally posted by HuMMerMan
HOORAY!!!!

My car is FIXED!

I got a call around 1 today that the car was fixed. I thought to myself, "bull$hit, it cant be fixed already..." But I humored them and went to the shop, and low and behold it was fixed :eek: They had no other customers today, so they had like 4 guys working on my car at once! A new wiring harness was installed, some other wires were spliced and repaired, and a new throttle position sensor, and fuel pump relay was installed.

It still smells like burned plastic inside, and there is still the burned and melted carpet and plastic, but its running good, and can still give me a grin when the gas pedal is on the floor. :D

I took it out for a "45 min shakedown cruse", and just got back from that. The bill.....$600. I wish it never happened in the first place, but I couldnt have asked for a better or cheaper repair job. Props to my local Chev dealer.

I picked up a couple of air fresheners today, and put them in the car. I hope that helps to get rid of the burned smell. Does anyone else know how to get rid of harsh smells like that? :ylsuper KICK ASS MAN!!! :D Glad your saga has had such a happy ending!!!

As for getting rid of that smell, ideally a couple days of fairly breezy, warm weather in a secure area would be what I would recommend as your best bet, so you can leave the windows (and sun/moonroof if you have one) open to allow lots of fresh air to circulate through your car and air out the upholstery. You may also want to try "Febreze" in your seats and other odor-absorbent surfaces, which I've heard is excellent at actually removing odors, as opposed to just covering them up, as most sprays of this nature do.

Great to hear that your car is all fixed up now. You must be real happy about that! :)

With regards to the smell, JD’s right, try Febreze. It’s great stuff.