[Fabroa5]

Hi Everyone. New here.
It’s taken me over a month to post because I was was so traumatized. Ready to talk about this now and warn others. If this happened to you contact me so I can send info to my lawyer. I’m in Toronto.

Bought my 2018 hybrid Pacifica new.

It was off, not charging, and parked in a shopping plaza parking lot. I was loading my daughter in and we smelled smoke. I touched the ground by her feet. It was warm. I pulled up carpet and a blast of fire came up and hit my face. I moved and thankfully it just burnt my hat lashes and brows.

We got a fire extinguisher and when we returned the van was full of smoke and my front seat and ground was on fire. Fire trucks arrived and worked on it for 2 hours to make sure it was out.

We were in a plaza lot. If this was at home my house would have burnt to the ground. I don’t want to think what could have happened to me or my family.

I was in shock at first but now have ptsd. Insurance has not done anything yet because they are waiting on the dealership to do tests.
It has been 2 months and we do not have a rental or courtesy car. Chrysler also did not provide a tow under roadside assistance.. they said it was no covered when we call as our van was burning!!!!!

Tests are taking long because they needed “special gloves”... because it is volatile..yet they let us go into the van the next day to get our stuff. They were very rude when we went there because they were not happy the tow truck left it there at night. They told us to move it!!! It took almost 2 months to get the gloves and now they have it and they still cannot do tests because the emergency brake is on and they do not know how to disable it because it’s electronically controlled. They are waiting for direction from head office on how to do this. This was over a week ago. They say they are working on REPAIR costs to give insurance. How they think they can come up with a repair quote without getting the vehicle into their shop and do diagnostics is beyond me.
It causes me great anxiety thinking about getting back into any Pacifica (which I loved) let alone this particular one with the smell of smoke, that was drenched with water, that had the front seat ripped out, that exploded and where the floor that my daughters feet would hang over is charred and covered with battery acid.
If anyone out there has advice or can help.. we need it. I’m so disappointed in Chrysler.

 

[1tg1]

Sorry for your loss.
Now, did you do the u94 update?

Sent from my SM-G960W using Tapatalk

 

[20pachy]

Sorry for your loss... Cant imagine how traumatised you all must be. Glad to note you are all fine. How many miles on the van and was it current with all recalls?

 

[thllxb]

Oh my freaking GOD! I hope you can get a full refund and enough compensation through your lawyer.

 

[AZBean]

That sounds really scary. This is the fourth Pacifica Hybrid fire that has been reported on this forum. @icydog has been collecting information and has placed a report in his dropbox: Pachy Fires While Parked That should get you the user names of the other victims and you can send them private messages for more information. In the other three cases the cars were plugged in but charging should have finished.

 

[Bitslizer]

Purely informational only. This is a serious matter but information is good for judging risk.

There were about 17k pachy as of dec 2019. 4x fire (none cat converter recall related) is about 0.0235% for comparison people who caught the flu and then die from the flu is about 0.05% this year

 

[Bitslizer]

Thank you for posting and thank god that your family is ok. If you have a chance, can you post hi resolution version of your pictures? They look a bit small blurry

 

[ScorpyMjolnir]

I doubt they repair. Smoke smell is not terribly difficult to get out, but the damage is sufficient to total the vehicle. I'd be curious to know if you did the recall as well.

 

[m0ebius604]

Wow,.. sorry to hear this. Disappointed with the treatment your describing.

They always want a repair quote for the records even when its obviously a right off.. Hope you find what you need here.

Please dont feel like people are being dismissive of your experience when conversation beings about the risks.. Bad things happen and its natural for people to analyze how likely it can happen again to others.

Doesn't mean that bad is any less bad.

 

[aglocer]

I am so very sorry this happened to you! Even though it is traumatic, I very much appreciate you sharing your experience. Hopefully Chrysler will make restitution, and figure out what is happening so this does not happen to anyone else.

 

[CANADAHYBRIDGUY]

The whole process should be with your insurance and not they FCA . Any alternative transportation will be with whatever policy coverage you have . I’m glad everybody is okay but honestly things happen in anything we purchase . The small percentage ehyrids in these matters is quite small thou . No matter what you purchase , car, phone , appliance , house , etc has the potential to have same outcome . I’m assuming you have house insurance and auto insurance , it’s all based on probability and that’s why we buy insurance . Just be glad everybody is okay and let insurance handle the matter . As far as retaining a lawyer I’d say that kinda premature as I’d wait to see what insurance is going to do . Hiring a lawyer at this stage only makes their pockets deeper from you . Good luck

 

[ScorpyMjolnir]

Hopefully Chrysler will make restitution,

Restitution for what? No one knows the cause of the fire. Why would Chrysler pay restitution?

 

[lutorm]

Restitution for what? No one knows the cause of the fire. Why would Chrysler pay restitution?

Because the vehicle is under warranty and if it catches fire just sitting while parked that constitutes a defect?

 

[lutorm]

Now, did you do the u94 update?

What's the U94 for? Fire under the second-row seats definitely seems like battery fire?

 

[m0ebius604]

What's the U94 for? Fire under the second-row seats definitely seems like battery fire?

Chrysler botched the u73 update and it caused many fires. The u73 recall was recalled and given the designation u94. (Fun fact: After u94 the engine fan noise started occurring while charging)

The catalytic converters would glow white hot and cause objects along the firewall or radiator to smoulder and catch fire.

Customers that had the u73 done, needed the u94 update but at the time where being rejected because the recall was marked completed with the u73 campaign..

Poor handling of the situation resulted much more damage.

The core issue was a fuel injection sync issue resulted in fuel being injected on the exhaust stroke intermittently. In Hybrid mode that could be from light to light so the cats are already lit and adding raw fuel is a bad thing.

I think its a fair question - We expect a fire from the u73 vehicles..

Facebook changed the group name to “U73 FIRE HAZARD” to raise awareness, ChrsylerCares was working hard helping members fix their recall records so that they would be accepted by the dealers for this critical update.

It was quite the time. Theres no official link either between the u73 and the u94 documented but those of us who lived it know u94’s true purpose.

But there are those people who just buy a vehicle, do the right thing by getting the recalls done but never go online. That is until their vehicle Burst into flames - they missed all the warnings..

Redirect Notice

I’ve lost trust in Chryslers software updates so I am still on the pre u73 cruise control recall software level.. which has never actually happened in real life. In good old Win95 spirit I’ll wait as long as I can for the service pack

 

[CANADAHYBRIDGUY]

Confused , so you just assume that that vehicle is under warranty that it’s covered . I’m confused , if the update was preformed would the cases not be in the minority ? Was this vehicle subject to the recall/check/update . People still assume that driving a vehicle with a battery, gas tank, fuel lines, brake lines is impervious to a occurrence. Just because the light is red one shouldn’t assume the car will stop . Same people who point fingers bbq in their garage , store gas cans in garage or check smoke/ carbon dioxide detectors. Just be thankful nobody was injured as anything can be replaced and people can’t . Just saying .

 

[Homer Simpson]

I’ve lost trust in Chryslers software updates so I am still on the pre u73 cruise control recall software level.. which has never actually happened in real life. In good old Win95 spirit I’ll wait as long as I can for the service pack

Yes. This.

 

[lutorm]

Confused , so you just assume that that vehicle is under warranty that it’s covered . I’m confused , if the update was preformed would the cases not be in the minority ? Was this vehicle subject to the recall/check/update . People still assume that driving a vehicle with a battery, gas tank, fuel lines, brake lines is impervious to a occurrence. Just because the light is red one shouldn’t assume the car will stop . Same people who point fingers bbq in their garage , store gas cans in garage or check smoke/ carbon dioxide detectors. Just be thankful nobody was injured as anything can be replaced and people can’t . Just saying .

Are you replying to me? I would assume that, yes, if I'm sitting in a parked car and it ignites itself, that constitutes a defect that would be covered under warranty. If it was a normal ICE car, I would still assume it would constitute a defect. It's sort of obvious, since catching fire is not part of a car's designed function. That just seems like the most likely scenario. If you think otherwise, I'm interested in your reasoning.

 

[PacDave]

Restitution for what? No one knows the cause of the fire. Why would Chrysler pay restitution?

I agree. Until it can be proven that the fire was caused by a defect in manufacturing then there’s no reason to think that Chrysler would be held responsible or would even cover anything under warranty. There may be a probability that the fire was caused by a defect but it has to be proven at least to a certain degree.

 

[PacDave]

Another thing to keep in mind is that the OP joined this forum specifically to report the fire and for probably no other reason. It was the very first post made and for all we know it may also be the last. While I do sympathize with anyone who has to go through such an experience, we simply don’t have enough details to make a judgement on this. In my mind it would be quite a different situation with a member who has been around some time and made a number of posts to the forum. But when a person joins and immediately posts about a problem they are experiencing and they talk about hiring a lawyer, etc. you’ve gotta think they are wrapped up in this emotionally and may have an agenda. I’m not saying it’s wrong to post information like this, in fact it’s beneficial to us all but you have to take it in context.