Peytoven

So today my 4x4 sPOD caught on fire...

I was sitting in my home working and I noticed some smoke
out the window. Opened my door and there was smoke coming from my hood. In a panic, I ran and pulled my extinguisher out of the back. Popped the hood and there was my sPOD burning up on fire. Sprayed it and would not go out. Popped the cover carefully and sprayed it. Fire came back and sprayed again. Fire came back again. ran and disconnected my battery. Sprayed again and fire stopped. I'm a bit traumatized if I didn't catch it when I did the whole thing could have burned down.

So some back story. So this sPOD has been installed since March and done a 7000 miles road trip and has worked like a charm. Yesterday, the upper hose on my radiator hose exploded on the trail. Here is more info on that https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/stoc...d-i-do-342969/

Coulda bunch of coolant have gotten inside the unit and caused this to happen? I will be contacting sPOD Monday morning in the hopes they can give some input on what happened. Not switches on the sPod where on.

The car still starts. All the wires underneath got some plastic melted on them but they all appear to be intact. I think I got very lucky.

hornetman

Damn dude your having a spout of bad luck. Hope all is confined to that area, I don't know how coolant could have caused that to erupt. So lucky that you caught this before it totally engulfed your jeep.

4x4chick

Wow, that sucks. Glad you saved the Jeep in time. Will like to here their response.

Peytoven

Yes, I have been incredibly unlucky, but for this got incredibly lucky. Still a traumatizing experience none the less. Very curious to see what sPOD is going to tell me.

Ryan0260

I don't see how coolant could cause that, but more likely and arc or short in the wiring somewhere. First time I have ever heard of this issue before though.

Mark Doiron

Reading that other thread (coolant hose), I have to wonder if maybe excess heat damaged the sPOD somehow. Or maybe just the right combination of heat and coolant in the right (wrong) spot. This is certainly unusual--first time I've heard of it and I've been around this forum since near the beginning. And have well over 100K miles on my own sPOD.

TheDirtman

Glad to see you didn't loose the jeep. Did you have a fuse at the battery? Any arching/short should have been killed by the main fuse.

jordy

I was thinking the same thing. If there was a disconnect be it a breaker or a fuse, once the fire was out, it shouldn't have been able to reignite.

Good job on the save. I'd go wire by wire and check insulation and make sure that there aren't any other spots that might come together and recreate this situation down the road.

jhol111964

Most likely related to the other off-nominal event, your burst hose. However, I had a Bosch dishwasher do the same thing while I was home thankfully catching it early enough to only loose the the circuit and control panel - the manufacturer only offered a replacement, to which I replied, "no thanks, not interested in a repeat". That dishwasher was 3 yrs old when it fried itself. That was 10 years ago. Never identified a root cause - had to be a defective product.

Peytoven

Just spoke to John over at sPOD. First of all, they have been super helpful in this, reaching out to me before I even reached out to them. They are equally as shocked as everyone else is. John thinks it's possible that some chemical in the coolant could have delaminated the board. I am sending my burnt board back to them and they will investigate.

Here is the circuit breaker. I will be running through the jeep today to check for any other damage.