VW Fire

At the end of June, our new Passat (well new for us, 2003 VW Passat) that Nate and I had bought about six months before, spontaneously caught on fire in the engine area. I drove from our apt. in Miamisburg, Ohio about 30 miles south into Cincinatti to shop at Costco. Before I actually started shopping I sat down to eat one of those delicious costco hot dogs when I noticed a couple of people run by with fire extingishers. Not thinking too much of it (obviously it couldn't be my car, it was still new) I finished my lunch. Then for some reason I just felt like it would be the "responsible" thing to do just to make sure it wasn't my car, so I walked out and, wow, yeah there is was, my car, flames shooting out from under the hood (well, not really shooting) but definitely visable. Then the fire dept. drove up, jumped out, and preceeded to pry open the hood of my car with a crowbar. Yeah...not too fun to watch. The end of the story? Well, VW flew out a specalist to check out our car. They ended up paying it off and giving us a $3000 credit to use at VW or Audi, which we used to buy a new VW Passat, which we love! No fires so far.

Today I recieved a message from a friend (thanks Brandon) with a link to a news article talking about how the government is upgrading an investigation into VW after recieving dozens of reports of engine fires in Passats. Below are a couple of links to the article written regarding these fires. Same article just two different sources.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21102249/

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071002/UPDATE/710020444/1148/rss25

Here are some pics of our poor car! The engine area was totally melted but the body and inside the car was perfect! When I went to pick up my stuff from the car the rest of the car looked so perfect that it was like I could drive it out of the lot.