355 catching on fire

Since I've been on this board, about 6 months now, I've read about approx. nine 355's catching on fire. They all seem to be on the left side (from the rear) engine compartment. We see the picts, but we never learn afterwards what caused them. I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread where we can see if there is a pattern and a particular failure we need to address.

Anyone want to start?

 

Flicking a cigarette butt that gets scooped up by the air intakes on the side of the car...........????????

 

Lambo voodoo dolls..............????????

 

It can't help having the fuel tank next to red hot exhaust manifolds.All it takes is the slightest leak from the fuel line and that's it. A GTS caught fire in London on Sunday.Dreadful sight.

 

I actually saw this RED GTS that was left in the bus stop on the side of the road, it must have caught fire the night before as the roof was roof . It was REALLY badly damaged, the rear glass had all melted and most of the rear was burnt, the engine lid was finished... Again.... it was on the leftside where most damage had appeared to have been sustained, I am guessing this is where the fire/cause of the wheole thing was.. I would like to know what causes this and how many people have had their Rarri catch fire. Wonder how many owners have a fire extinguisher should a problem ever occur...

Jaz.
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I remember a system that was developed a few years ago. It involved hosing being placed around the engine bay. In the event of a fire, the heat/flam would break the hose and release the extinguisher, thus putting out the fire.

Don't know if its still available.

 

Thanks C2turbo for providing this info

so it's my first day at work at the new job and I am driving my new boss to lunch in my 98 355b when my gas light comes on I tell him i need to stop to get gas we drive another mile or so and I start to smell gas but don't think any thing of it I thinking its's another car well we pull into the pizza place and can really smell the gas now I pop the engine deck and see the gas running down from the # 5 fuel injector on across the valve cover and onto the headers my I quickly grabbed a rag and rapped it around the injector to soak up as much gas as I can.I could hear the gas sizzling on the headers there is no question in my mind that if I had keeped driving it would have light up like a bond fire. The reason i am posting this is because I remember someone mentioning on the board how many 355's burn up and questioning what would cause this. well I had the car towed to my house and pulled the intake off I was prepared to find a bad o ring on the injector but it turned out that some how the injector had poped the clip over the bezzel on the rail and the injector had just slid down a little bit and was pissing fuel past the o-ring. I replaced the orings anyway and have no leaks . Has anyone had this happen before I talked to a buddy at Ferrari Atlanta and they said they had never seen it before.

It was an easy fix but scared the **** out of me ( If you smell Fuel Stop )


Later C2turbo

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33400

 

Hi all,

This is my first post here, been lurking in this site for a while. This subject is very close to my heart. About 4 years a go my close frined and his sister took his new (less than 2 hours old) F 355 spider for a spin. He was going way too fast around a downhill corner and spun his car. The car hit a wall on its left side and literally exploded. He was very badly burned but his younger sister didn't make it.

He was in ICU for month and till this day he still bear the scarring all over his face and body. Yes, I know that this was his fault for driving like an idiot but about 2 month after the accident I was watching the Australian Production car racing and a 355 again was hit on the left side and caught fire.

I beleive this was due to the flaws of its design within 355 (eg; having the fuel cell very close the engine and not very well protected). Reading this article makes me realise how many other people has had this similar problem. I am just suprised that Ferrari never been sued for this, or at least recalled their car to make it safer.

BTW if you lived in Perth, Australia. It was on the front page of newspaper and all over the 6 PM news. It was the blue 355 spider.

Yes, I love 355 and all F car but I wonder if the factory knew about this but didn't bother to fix it.

 

Hobbit,

I'm sorry to hear about your friend, what a tragedy. While I'm not trying to start any suits, I do think it is important that 355 owners pull our information together to protect ourselves. I think we need to learn the causes - NOT FROM SPECULATION - but from analysis of problems we have had or have learned about. It is incumbent upon us, if we have a fire, to have the cause investigated. It is only from this information that we can save these cars and lives. C2turbos' post is exactly what we need. Clearly his problem has no relationship to the location of the fuel tank. But, I wonder if his car had ignited, would we ever have learned what caused it? I don't want to see another one or person lost.

 

It was a strange co-incidence, but I had just returned from Talacrest last Saturday having seen the result of what happens when belts are replaced by removing the fuel tank and not refitting the tank properly....engine bay up in flames! Luckily for me anyway, I had decided not to purchase that particular car a few weeks earlier, but the new owner only had it for one day. What made it worse still was that the belts had been replaced by a main dealer! This incorrect method of changing the belts was mentioned to me by another dealer a few weeks earlier as it can lead to fuel leaks! Obviously he was right.

 

I'm confused. Are you suggesting the car that caught fire in Richmond last week did so because the belt service on that car involved removing the fuel tank instead of dropping the engine?

 

- When you drop the engine you disconnect the fuel pipes.
- When you drop the tank you disconnect the fuel pipes.

What difference does it make ? NONE. This is just another example of dealer Bull$*!t trying to keep owners in the dark & trying to cover slack workmanship.

In fact, when you drop the engine you also disconnect the fuel evaporative recovery pipes, the oil breather pipes, the oil feed & return pipes, the A/C pipes, the power steering pipes, the coolant circuit, the clutch hydraulic circuit, F1 shift hydraulics etc.etc.etc. There is WAY more chance of stuff going wrong when you drop the engine rather than the fuel tank.

FWIW I don't think it matters how you change the belts, so long as you change them (and the tensioners) when you should and that the work is done properly by people who know what they're doing.

 

The 355 has a left side filler neck. Could it be possiable that many of these fires(not accident related) could be caused by overfilling the fuel tank? Another thing to remember is the 355 has a bracket that holds the 2 main fuel feed lines in the center of the engine towards the front of the car. These lines are fastend by a singal stud and nut which goes through a common braket for both the fuel lines. The lines are sealed by o-rings. I have seen these o-rings leak..Somthing you all may want to check!! You can see were I;m talking about. Just look at were you fill the power steering on the eariler (pre 98 cars) 355's. Just in front of that is were the fuels lines connect to the fuel rail manifold. This is the location were I have seen the leaks..not major ones but enough to cause a fire

 

Here, here. Great post, thanks.

 

Tony

I was not suggesting anything of the sort, except that the car at Talacrests fire WAS caused by the fuel tank hoses being split by incorrect refitting and this isn't the first time this scenario has been mentioned to me by dealers. I certainly wouldn't call it 'scaremongering' and I'm sure the owner of the car at Talacrest wouldn't either.

 

Funny you mention this but I just had that "stud" come loose on me the other day causing fuel to sputter out...I was heading out for a drive with a few other local members and caught the sent of fuel. Nothing scarier than knowing the 355 history on engine fires and smelling fuel, knowing it's coming from your car. Once I stopped and popped the back, I saw that the stud had come loose....noticing "wet spots" on the valve covers, etc. The stud actually appeared to be stripped. It's holding up for now checking it every time I go out. It snugs down but doesn't ever seem to want to sit properly.

My two cents....not fun!!!!

 

So when were the hoses split? You state that the car had belts removed the "incorrect" way and were then redone the "correct" way. As we see from the post below, in both cases the fuel pipes are disconnected during the work.

 

The hoses were split by gradual clamp chafing after incorrect refitting. I didn't 'state' anything about 'correct' refitting. Having seen the additional damage done to the car, which I have not mentioned till now, I would not want a car that had the belts changed in this way.

 

Some of those cars were burned because when the 30k service was done, they were improperly assembled. There is a fuel line that runs behind the bulkhead, in front of the engine. There are two seperate lines, and on the left side, the bottom one has a clamp. If the assembler doesn't have a good knowledge of the car, they might assemble the clamp with the sharp end up. It then rubs on the top hose, and sooner or later, it rubs through, and you start smelling fuel. If you blow it off, and immediately don't stop, and check it out, looking in that area, the leak grows, and you've got a fire. Happened to me, happened to that GTS in LA, and several others. There is a service bulletin from Ferrari about that problem. Make sure that your mechanic knows of the problem, and that your car isn't going to have a fire, from that little problem.

Art

 

Cheers Art, maybe I wasn't being bu**sh*tted afterall!

 

Sorry , but re-read your first post above .You clearly state the engine bay went up because fuel tank hadn't been fitted correctly during an in situ belt service.You then further state that the belts were redone by a main dealer , which by definition means the engine was dropped out .
I was present and posted pics of an in situ belt service on my car. Nothing was damaged . The Ferrari community has debated endlessly what is the "correct" method of performing a belt service. I am personally convinced that an in situ belt service carried out by a specialist is safe. This is the method that Ferrari itself recommends in it's dealer online 355 manual and the job is booked at 8 hours.
Are you on here as an owner of a 355GTB or as a dealer hiding behind an anonymous screen name.

 

Tony

You've lost me, I can't see why you would think I'm anything to do with a dealer. I have just bought a 355. I was told by many dealers what to look for and changing belts by dropping the tank was one of them as it can cause problems if not done correcly. The car I saw at Talacrest had the belts changed by a MAIN DEALER a year ago by removing the fuel tank and not by the approved method. That was the point I was making. You've obviously totally misinterpreted my original message.

 

I would appreciate constructive information only. TonyH, you are a moderator, you should have noticed 355gtboy's comments on SITU belt service he states "This incorrect method of changing the belts was mentioned to me by another dealer " not his personal experience. Further the RF128706 post make the information clear as to potential problems with both. I request this banter back and forth stop. No one here thinks that a good SITU belt service can't be done. Please start another thread if you want to discuss it further. If you want to do something constructive, remove ILuv4Res' posts as they provide no help.

For the others, thank you very much for posting. I have already learned a great deal. I hope that this information will be turned into knowledge for all 355 owners and at least one less fire will be the result. Some of this information may seem obvious, but I assure you it is not. I've driven a minimum of 600K miles and I've never experienced a fuel leak let alone a fire.

Two things:

If anyone has a picture (hires. can be emailed to me) of the fuel line diagram, I would appreciate it.

If anyone has installed a engine bay fire suppression system, I would appreciate hearing about it.

................. thanks again

 

Thanks Letsjet, I have re-read my original message to try and see where it could have been mis-construed, but I can't. Or where the idea that I am a dealer came from! I was only trying to post constructive information that had been given to me and to make the point that even main dealers cannot always be trusted to do work correctly.

 

Eric,
sorry you feel that way. The purpose of my posts were to find out if an anonymous UK dealer was coming on here stirring things up by suggesting an in situ belt service was responsible for a 355 engine bay fire.Things are a lot easier if i know who i'm corresponding with and the first post made by 355gtboy got my back up.
Apologies all round if i misread the situation.
Rgds
Tony