Jnes

My name is Jayne and August of 2012, while visiting family out of town, my battery died. I had it replaced by a battery store and 53 hours later after sitting for 3 hours, my Corvette burst into flames and completely burned. My mom's suv sitting next to the drivers side also caught fire and was destroyed. The fire department said the wiring in battey or battery itself was the cause of fire. I'm involved in legal action now against the shop that replaced my battery. I'm looking for any information that anyone has with this type of fire that would help in proving my case of negligence. The installers did not completely remove the side panel when changing the battery and I believe they did not install the hold down bracket. I appreciate any and all advice in this matter.

Jnes

I wasn't able to post photos in the thread, but I made an album and posted some there. Also, I have owned my Corvette for 10 years and kept it in tiptop shape, it was always mistaken for a newer model. I miss her very much, but I'm also glad that I wasn't on the highway when this happened.

Update: I figured out how to add the photo.

VeryUnoriginal

Awh

Glad the car was off the road and you weren't in it when this happened. Hope this gets settled.

mrmtrtrnd

I'm sure sorry about your vette and your moms SUV. I don't have any info that would help but there are a few members that have lost there cars in the same kind of fire. I hope someone can give you the kind of assistance you need for your case. Good luck and I hope this gets worked out for you and your in another vette soon.

BrianCunningham

There's a fusible link right behind the battery.
I noticed when mine fried it slightly cooked the battery.

Eakster

Sorry, that's tragic.. hope you get something out of this experience

Impala Balko

which one is the fuseable link.... I am in the middle of replacing my battery and I would like to inspect that so my car doesnt burn to the ground and take my house with it.

Jnes

Thanx for all the well wishes. I hope everything works out for me, too.

Close up of battery compartment.

ghlkal

I'm really sorry to hear this.

I can imagine that without the bracket the battery could move around and damage some wiring, etc.

Did you have someone inspect the damage trying to determine the cause? Some insurance companies have forensic investigators. Their determination would help your cause.

383vett

Sorry to hear what happened. If the car wasn't driven after the install, maybe they connected the positive cable on the negative terminal and vice versa. That could do it. Good luck.

BlackbirdZ07

What kind of battery was installed? Our cars use side post batteries. There's a metal brace that goes diagonally from the frame up to the hood latch(?). If they installed a battery with side posts AND top posts (some batteries do have both) it's possible the top positive post came into contact with that metal brace, shorted the battery, and started the fire.

When I installed an Optima battery in my '92 I was very worried about that happening. Optimas are only available with top and side posts, and the top positive post is on the inboard side so it was very close to the brace. I ground away a notch on the brace, left the insulator on the battery post, and made sure the hold down was tight. It was close enough that I was still worried.

mrmtrtrnd

You are so right about the top post batteries. Thats the way my car came when I bought it and had a battery drain down problem. I'm lucky I caught that before a disaster. After changing to the side post, the car had no more dead batteries.

corvetteronw

Glad you are OK and hope things turn out good for you and you get an even better one to replace it with.
When I first joined the Forum I learned of the top post battery problems. Shortly after that I went to a Corvette show and found this beautiful C4 that was all decked out and shining like a diamond. I noticed he had one of those batteries installed that had both side and top posts. I nicely told him about the danger to his beautiful Corvette and he treated me like s**t. Oh, well. To each his own.
I still have a pic of his engine compartment:

Klondike

Man, that's terrible! That's another reason I don't trust ANYBODY to work on any of my cars. I'm paranoid when I can't see what somebody else is doing to something of mine that I depend on. I worked on my wifes car just today and discovered some things the dealer left off or screwed up last time it went into the shop. I may not be perfect, but when something gets screwed up, I at least know who's to blame.

84VetteMan205hp

SORRY for your loss

Glenno

Glad it wasn't in your garage in the middle of the night! Still sucks. Good luck with your resolve.

Railroadman

tomtom72

Just another well wisher here on a good outcome for you in this bad situation. Sorry to see so much property damage, but no one was hurt and that's a good thing.

As others have said about the top terminal/side terminal combination batteries being really too close for safety fit, that's very true. I would add one other thing I noticed in my 90, which can't be that different from your 92. The location of the battery and a rather large amount of wiring that is located right next to and behind the battery presents an excellent chaffing situation. I would think one fact might be in your favor. I am fairly certain that by 92 the newer insulation formula was adopted by GM in it's vehicle wiring. Prior to 92 the wiring had the old formula insulation and was very prone to age related cracks induced by vibration & heat, and that wiring was very prone to chaffing. It's a thing I constantly watch out for as mine is a 90! The sad thing is that unless you had dedicated classic car insurance, the insurance company can't go to far over what the book values of our cars are. I truly hope you had such insurance, or perhaps had a discrete "agreed value" clause added to your standard auto policy. Those clauses cost a lot, but the alternative in the event of a loss is costly too. I hope this all works out well for you!


Tom

DinoBob

Fortunately for us our cars tend to book much higher than actual retail.

mickey5

How did the installers remove the battery without taking off the side panel? If they left some fasteners in place the panel would have to be bent aside and likely would have cracked/broken it. Did you look at that area after the replacement?