My daughter took her car to have it fixed and 30 minutes later it exploded!!!?

  • Thread starter Thread starter marcia r
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marcia r

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My daughter took her car to a mechanic to have the water pump and timing belt changed..they decided not to change the timing belt because they said it looked fine. I paid with a credit card. She left and drove about 30 miles and her car exploded! She had her friends baby in the car with her and was barely able to get him out in time before the car caught fire and by the time the fire department got there the car was completely gutted. I have never seen a car burn like this before. Can we hold the garage liable? Do we consult an attorney first? And let the attorney call the garage? What could have caused this fire? Amazingly she had just put $40 dollars of gas in the tank and the fire even though it totally destroyed the car it never reached the gas tank! Please help us what to do about this. Can I dispute the credit card payment? She had only liability on the car. Its a 97 Dodge Intrepid and had been running fine before taking it to the garage. The explosion in the engine happened very suddenly with no warning of the car getting hot or anything. Also I heard her ask them before she left if the car in general everything else looked fine... they said yes.
She took it to the mechanic to change the water pump because it was leaking... and usually they change the timing belt at the same time.
 
before you can know for sure you would need proof that anything had been messed with. im not a car mechanic or anything but from what i heard the most likely cause was that she didn't fill the car all the way up if she just used 40$ so the air in the gas tank was mixed with the fumes from the gas, the thing that actually explodes. if there was some kind of hole, most likely very small and on the top of the tank, or if the pressure caused the fumes to go through the pump with the gas to the engine, the fumes will have gradually heated to the point of explosion after having built up in the engine. there would have been no way for the people at the garage to have seen this problem if they weren't looking for it.
 
If you can come up with the reason it exploded you can come back on them if it was their fault. Without knowing the cause there's not much you can do. You need proof.
 
Slow down. Yes, I realize it looks bad having just come from the shop, but before you jump to conclusions, you need to have that vehicle taken to a different shop and have them determine what happened and what caused the fire. It is very possible that the other shop had nothing to do with it. However, it is possible that they are liable, and if that's the case, you need to have proof available prior to confronting them about it.
 
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