95 850 turbo Up in flames with pics

[osman]

What makes 850's spontaneously combust?

[osman]

My son was driving his 95 850 Turbo at 70MPH on I-35 from san marcos to austin community college one morning.
He saw and smelled smoke, pulled over and the car erupted in flames.
He and his classmate grabbed their newly purchased laptops and textbooks and headed for the exists.
Soon EMS, Kyle Fire Dept, and Texas State Troopers were all on the scene.
The car had over 200K+ miles and burned a little bit of oil (1L per 1K miles) but nothing else, everything else was stage 0.
What makes volvos go up in flames? I can only find NTSB bulletins about fuel pump stem/seals leaking and heated seats burning up. I have pics of other volvos I have seen in junkyards that have been completely burned.

[mfagus]

WOW! I hope your son is ok?
I had a car (VW Camper) ignite on me a few years ago and was a total loss. The investigators (Fire and Insurance) were never able to determine a cause, just that it started in the engine compartment which I already knew. The car was running at idle when flames started coming out of the engine compartment.

Mark

[jblackburn]

Holy crap!!!

I'm glad they both got away from that unharmed. That's quite a blaze.

Fuel leak perhaps?

[abscate]

Almost certainly fuel leak. High pressure fuel system ...15 year old hoses....hot exhaust manifold

[rspi]

I seen one a few days ago in the junk yard burnt from front to back. It looked to me that the fire started near the battery area, that's where things looked the most burnt.

Volvo use to brag about their cars being made of "fire resistant" material (cabin area: seats, carpet, etc).

I also read once where a guy had a car burn like that, his fire started under the dash.

Sorry to see that happened.

[osman]

I got the call at 9:30 AM from my son, telling me the car had caught on fire so he pulled over, I was imagining some burnt wiring (I have repaired the fan shroud wiring from being burnt and melted on some 850's) and that after some junkyard replacement parts and some wire soldering he would be back on the road later that day. By the time I arrived at 10:00 the car had already been consumed and removed, only my son, the first responders and black patch of burnt grass were still present. Since I am not an arson investigator and the cars salvage value was severely impacted due to it being burnt down to the metal, I never bothered to find the impound lot that had the car and do my own investigation. my first impression when my son showed me the photo was that fuel had been an obvious accelerant. However the fuel lines (that run beneath the car to the motor) on these cars are metal with the only rubber hose being the little two inch hose that attaches to the Fuel Pressure Regulator. BTW this happened in late September so it isnt our Black 97 t5 850 it was a similar black 95 850 turbo with black alcantara suede headliner and HID headlights. But yes when I saw the pic I was very glad my son and his friend made it out with all their stuff, fazed but uninjured.

[instarx]

Vehicle fires aren't really that uncommon - they just seem uncommon because we don't see them. I looked up the stats and they are surprising...

Car fires may not seem very common, but according to some new AAA research, they are both common and deadly. AAA says nationally highway vehicle fires account for 17 percent of all fires and 13 percent of all civilian fire deaths. In fact, last year they caused more deaths than apartment fires.

Hot engine, hot exhaust, hot brakes, gasoline, oil and grease on engine blocks...

[JDS60R]

Gasoline, power steering fluid and automatic transmission fluid are flammable.

[cn90]

Wow... the car really "overheated". Glad everyone is OK.