How many people here have fire extinguishers?

Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives

I went to autozone to get a fire extinguisher and they had this little bitty one maybe might put out a cigarette if saw one. I looked on ebay nothing much for cars. I like to find a polished on maybe chrome or so. It would look good in the trunk plus I really hate 20k in mods go up in smoke when insuance will only cover my car maybe worth 6000 a fourth of parts in the car.

I read about some that eat up wires real bad and destroy the car even worse then before. I love to have the built in fire system with pull handles but they are like 500 buck at the average.

I bet someone out there has a story or two about electrical fires or fuel ones.

steve (BK4293 or something like that) can tell you all about it

There was somebody on here who had a car fire a couple of years back. It was soo sad. They had this totally mint Tahoe or Suburban that was loaded. As they were coming home from a a camping trip, the wiring in either their trailer or trailer hookup shorted and caught fire. It torched the car to the point where it was just a body with no interior or paint. Like I said, soo sad.

Eletrical fires aren't too common in cars nowadays, and they seem to happen more often in cars with a modified electrical system. This isn't a suprise to me because most wiring jobs I've seen done on cars by installers of mobile audio, trailer hitches, and other accessories that require wiring is piss poor.

I made sure when my dealer wired my mirror up that they did right. No splicing shorter wires together to make longer ones, no mechanical connectors, proper fuses and fuse holders, soldering to make connections with heat shrink tubing to cover the connections. And most importantly a new ground, not one tapped into another ground.

If the dealer or installer doesn't do work like that, then they are not working on your wiring properly and you are risking the operation of whatever they install and taking the risk for a fire to occur.

I have the half size one in the trunk....don't mess with fires. Especially after what happened to Steve's car.

I got one at Wal-Mart since I have changed a bunch of the electronics (stereo and lights).

They did carry a silver one as well.

I was riving my car the other day and then it started bucking and shut down. I stopped and something smelt burnt...popped the hood. There was a small fire...the main power wires found their way to the downpipe and caught on fire!! I got it out and had to unhook the battery quickly because it kept sparking.

Looking on the bright side...the wires are the right length now!!

I'd really like to have one in my car. You get to modifying things and you just never know what can happened. Heck, my stock turn signal switch smoked and almost caught fire on the zetec but I was able to quickly shut the car off and pull the relay. All the good ones for cars I have found are $150+, and I just don't want to spend that much. Any good ideas yet?

IMO...id say that it is worth $500 to protect 20K in mods...

I have a standard red home fire extinguisher in my trunk. Cost me $10 from Home Depot. Much bigger, and incredibly cheaper, than one of those car shinny ones.

I found a real nice one I might get for now. but yeah 500 is cheap insurance but heck not driving it alot is too lol. I wish I had a force feild around my car I am so defensive when I drive to avoid a collison people just can't drive these days too. I am just trying to protect my hard work here .....

here the one I might get nice chrome one
http://www.autobarn.net/xxx109110.html

ive had one since ive bought the car

Originally posted by mystiquevltwin:
ive had one since ive bought the car

+1

My car kit came with one, i want to mount it inside the interior tho, just in case.

Nitrous tends to be a bigger problem with fires..

Originally posted by BurritaSVT:
I went to autozone to get a fire extinguisher and they had this little bitty one maybe might put out a cigarette if saw one. I looked on ebay nothing much for cars. I like to find a polished on maybe chrome or so. It would look good in the trunk plus I really hate 20k in mods go up in smoke when insuance will only cover my car maybe worth 6000 a fourth of parts in the car.

I read about some that eat up wires real bad and destroy the car even worse then before. I love to have the built in fire system with pull handles but they are like 500 buck at the average.

I bet someone out there has a story or two about electrical fires or fuel ones.

Why don't you get a policy that will cover the extra 20K in modifications in your car? Talk to your insurance company about covering the extra stuff in your car, I bet they will...

There are bigger extinguishers that are "permanent," as in you need to run some piping to wherever you think the fire would be at (engine compartment), so that when you push a button or pull the pin in the trunk, it douses the flames.

Summit

Originally posted by Big Daddy Kane:
There are bigger extinguishers that are "permanent," as in you need to run some piping to wherever you think the fire would be at (engine compartment), so that when you push a button or pull the pin in the trunk, it douses the flames.

Summit

Um, yeah, didn't you notice that Burrita mentioned these in his initial post?

Anyway, we use the "permanent" hard mounted systems in our race cars, and have been very happy with them, mostly because we have never needed to set one off. Though, our body shop did release one on accident one time. That sucked because we had to replace the bottle and it wasn't cheap.

Originally posted by BlackE1:
I got one at Wal-Mart since I have changed a bunch of the electronics (stereo and lights).

They did carry a silver one as well.

i have the same one (probably). its made by Kiddie and is for electrical fires but also does flammible liquids iirc. while i was having some fuel rail isssues in my car (like Steve) i was carrying one around, and scared to death. although i was told that one of these "little" fire extinguishers would do nothing against a fuel fire.

(maybe a full size one like you'd have at a school?)

Originally posted by svtizzle4stizzle:

Originally posted by BlackE1:
I got one at Wal-Mart since I have changed a bunch of the electronics (stereo and lights).

They did carry a silver one as well.

i have the same one (probably). its made by Kiddie and is for electrical fires but also does flammible liquids iirc. although i was told that one of these "little" fire extinguishers would do nothing against a fuel fire.

well the little one was like $10, maybe just get a bigger version for like $30?

Originally posted by BlackE1:
well the little one was like $10, maybe just get a bigger version for like $30?

Purpose built for automotive applications:

Click-it

The class BC tells you what type of fire it is for. I looked at an automotive class BC and one that was a regular class BC extinguisher. They were the same including the dry chemical they used, only difference was the automotive one came with a mounting plate, a higher price, and was labeled differently on the out side of the box.

I could be wrong but looking at the web site below it seems that it should work for automotive use.

classification of extinguishers: web page

EDIT: Mine must be class ABC and I thought it was only a BC, i will check after work.

Originally posted by Rara:

Originally posted by Big Daddy Kane:
There are bigger extinguishers that are "permanent," as in you need to run some piping to wherever you think the fire would be at (engine compartment), so that when you push a button or pull the pin in the trunk, it douses the flames.

Summit

Um, yeah, didn't you notice that Burrita mentioned these in his initial post?

Guess not...

Read about fire extinguishers here on Wikipedia.

The one I got for $10 is a ABC extinguisher, meaning I could use it on any type of fire. I figure it is good to have incase I came across a fire, or something like a seat caught fire. Keep in mind with a BC extinguisher (as the chrome ones are), you could only put out gas or electrical fires. Something simple like a short in a seat that sets upolstry on fire can't be put out by a BC; you'll just stand there and watch it burn. The big difference is ABC dry chem is harder to clean up then BC chem, but after a fire, I'd just be glad I had the means to put it out. $10 is a very good investment and could very well save someone else's, or your own life. Just keep that in mind the differnce between $10 and $70+ for something that sits in your trunk...

I've got one too. It's in the trunk with the spare under the mat. I never got around to mounting it proper like.

Don't have me any NOS, or racing parts in my ride so no need for a fire extinguisher. I do however, carry an umbrella as well as my handy tool kit.

Kinda funny story I heard today...

So my coworker made Staff (the Air Force 06E5 list came out today for all those E4s that tested in April), so you know, calls home to the family. He's got a line number of over 9,000 (so not sewing on till like this time next year).

Apparantly his cousin got in a car accident... Modified car that lost control while being stupid. Totalled his cousin's car, who was unhurt.

Modded car went into the ditch, then the guy jumps out of the car and runs like hell. Couple seconds later they saw flames, then the car blew up!

Originally posted by Big Daddy Kane:
Kinda funny story I heard today...

So my coworker made Staff (the Air Force 06E5 list came out today for all those E4s that tested in April), so you know, calls home to the family. He's got a line number of over 9,000 (so not sewing on till like this time next year).

Apparantly his cousin got in a car accident... Modified car that lost control while being stupid. Totalled his cousin's car, who was unhurt.

Modded car went into the ditch, then the guy jumps out of the car and runs like hell. Couple seconds later they saw flames, then the car blew up!

He-he. He-he. aaaaaaahhh. yeah. Laugh-a-minute.

Guess they can laugh about it, now.

Dont have one but should get one just to be safe. You never know what can happen.

I've got one under the mat in the trunk of the SVT. I went and got a kitchen sized one from Wal-Mart. If that can't put out the fire, then my car will be toast anyways.

Originally posted by BlackE1:

Originally posted by svtizzle4stizzle:

Originally posted by BlackE1:
I got one at Wal-Mart since I have changed a bunch of the electronics (stereo and lights).

They did carry a silver one as well.

i have the same one (probably). its made by Kiddie and is for electrical fires but also does flammible liquids iirc. although i was told that one of these "little" fire extinguishers would do nothing against a fuel fire.

well the little one was like $10, maybe just get a bigger version for like $30?

i have a decent sized one, not the little show car size model. but from what ive been told, once fuel catches on fire you had better just run like hell cuz there is nothing that you will be able to do to stop it. this was mainly pertaining to my fuel rail leakage issues i was having on my 3L.