My son came to me saying the windshield is broken on his '93 Audi 90S. He parks it on the street in front of our home. It has not been driven for three days.

I go out and look. WOW! Badly cracked but no apparent impact?? I try to lift the wipers that were mid stroke and they are stuck to the windshield??

The drivers door will not unlock. When we get the passenger door open, the reason for the cracked windshield is pretty obvious ... DASH FIRE!

It looks like the fire started in the gauge cluster. The dashboard, gauge cluster, and headliner are melted and were dripping. The rest of the interior is amazing intact ... although with a lot of smoke damage.

Totaled? Probably ... with about 300,000 miles. Too bad. We installed a 100k engine, new clutch, and new shocks just last summer. We only had liability insurance ... full coverage was a bit expensive for a $500 car for a nineteen year old.

Odd that a fire would start in a car that is parked with everything turned off?

Well, it's only money. At least it didn't start on fire while he was driving.

Cheers,

Eddie

I remember that smell from my first 914. Opened the door and the crispy smell was saturated in everything, most of the wiring under the dash had dripped onto the rubber floor mat, and had to replace everything under there. Lucky for me i could just drive with the top off for a few weeks and the smell went back to the usuall burnt oil smell

sorry that happend, but better that your son was not driving on the freeway or somthing worse when it happened. (the bright side)

That sucks, one does not usually expect things to just spontaneously destroy themselves! Glad everyone was okay.

Did he leave an Ipod on the charger?

My guess would the seat heater switches or relay. They get stuck on ........ Wanna buy an Ur S4? Or maybe not, for a 19 YO.

The Cap'n

Cap'n

Ur S4 ... tell me more. He lusts after the S4.

I'm driving south to So Cal (leaving this evening). Maybe I can stop by.

Thanks,

Eddie

Is it possible that the wiper motors somehow came on after the wipers had frozen to the windshield and overheated, starting a fire behind the dash? In any case, wow. Scary.

A number of years back my neighbor had backed his 4x4 into his attached garage for the night. After about 3 hours he heard a loud crash coming form the garage and opened the door to find his Bronco has actually bolted through the overhear door by itself and was on fire. Apparently what had happened was an engine compartment fire heated the engine enough to make it fire on the remaining fuel in the cylinders and intake. He was just lucky that he left it in a forward gear. The noise probably save some lives, his daughter was sleeping in the bedroom above the garage. Strange how this can happen.

does this mean your gonna have a pull apart and sawzall party!
craigs list the good parts or find another.

"Lusts"? I bet he does. I also have a CQ on the market. See my PMs

I lust for a Ur S4 (and am almost 22 so infinitely more responsible).


It is rather strange that it went up when not in use, but is good that he wasn't on the highway. I had a dash light while on the highway; it was pretty scary.

This would make a great donor car for an Audi 2.8 V6 conversion into a 914.

The engine and transaxle could be used as a unit.

172 HP with a 5 speed gearbox.

Eddie