new BMW caught fire, wrote off 2nd car and damaged a 3rd - help

scottvsaunders

Hey,

This is going to be a long winded post so please bear with me whilst I try and put my issue into some form of logically forum post..here goes..

My 4-month-old BMW 420D caught fire on my drive in the early hours of yesterday morning through what appears to have been an electrical fault which started under the bonnet and quickly engulfed the car, melting the engine, melding the front of my wife's park which was parked in front of it (nose to nose) and even damaged the side of the neighbor’s car which was parked approx. 3 meters away. Now I say that this was an electrical fire based on the opinion of the fire investigator who came out to inspect. There were no signs of "foul play" and no accelerants were used. The evidence under the bonnet shows where the fire started so they are satisfied that it was a manufacturing defect.

The BMW was a lease car from Arval and had company insurance from RSA, my boss has been made aware of what happened and told me to pass the insurance details to the neighbor’s as well as my own insurance company who cover my wife’s car (One Call) . It looks like 3 claims will be going in against RSA as the BMW was responsible for the damage on the 3 cars.

So that's the background of my issue. Now here comes the questions.

1) All the signs and the experts say that this was an electrical fire leading me to believe that there should be some involvement from the manufacturer - can or should I approach them for help and do they have a responsibility?

2) My wife's car is a Nissan that is on HP - we used a 3rd party finance company (Money Barn) to lend us the money to buy the vehicle from a Nissan dealership. As far as the dealership was concerned we were cash buyers and repay monthly repayment to Money Barn as part of a 60-month agreement. When we spoke to the insurance company on the Nissan they advised the car was worth £9750, however, the outstanding finance on the Nissan is approx £15000 leaving us with some rather nasty negative equity. What can we do about this in the event of the Nissan being wrote off ? Do I just accept the insurance write off, use the payout money to purchase a new car as cash and continue to repay the same monthly payments essentially not telling Money Barn what has happened or will the insurance go to them, we have the replay the negative equity still and end up car less but still making payments (as situation I really do need to avoid like the plague)?

3) The BMW catching fire issue is actually more common than I assumed, a quick Google search showed pages of hits with BMW's catching fire whilst parked leading me to believe that this is a known issue that BMW are / having been keen quiet on. Should I challenge this with BMW or do anything about this issue at this stage?

Fully appreciate that anything mass produced will have an acceptable failure rate but this is my life and the lives of my family that was in immediate danger here. We were woken at 4am yesterday to the sound of the fire brigade on the verge of kicking in my front door to wake us all up as they thought the cars were going to explode. Metal and plastic can be replaced but my family can’t so I do very particularly bitter about what has happened.

Right now, I am left without a car, the BMW was collected yesterday by a company called Copart on behalf of the business insurance, my wife’s car is being collected today on behalf of our own car insurance and the neighbor is sorting their car out themselves with their dealership.

What are my options?

Sorry to ramble on as there will no doubt be spelling mistakes within this post, I have tried to make it as factual as possible but I am sure some emotion will have been added.

Cheers

neilmcl

1) It'll do no harm, I assume you're currently working with your lease company? At the end of the day BMW have no legal responsibility to you as you are not a BMW customer.

2) If it's a write off then the insurer should pay out the market value of the car. As far as any shortfall is concerned then this is exactly what GAP insurance is for, I assume you chose not to take this out?

3) As far as fires are concerned I wouldn't start worrying over things you've read in the Daily Mail etc especially as the reports are centred around vehicles in the US. I don't see any evidence that this is a "common" issue in the UK but by all means raise your concerns with BMW if you want to.

scottvsaunders

Cheers - we was not offered any GAP insurance when we took out the insurance. Would have taken it if we were offered it as its only few hundred pounds as well.

Mercdriver

scottvsaunders wrote: »

Cheers - we was not offered any GAP insurance when we took out the insurance. Would have taken it if we were offered it as its only few hundred pounds as well.

It is something usually offered at car dealers and better taken from a company direct.

AdrianC

Nobody's hurt, all the property's covered by insurance... There's really nothing to compensate.

The fact that your Nissan was in negative equity isn't really insurance's problem (and it certainly isn't BMW's!). It was insured for its market value. You had a car worth £9,750, and will get a payout of £9,750. You need to inform the finance company, if the finance was secured against the car, because the security is no longer available to them in the event of a default.

spiro

Regarding Money Barn, I'm pretty sure you have to advise them the car has been subject to a total loss (check the t&cs). You'll then need to work out a repayment plan with them.
You can argue about the value and I would do this by gathering adverts for cars of the same make/model/age/mileage.

debtdebt

scottvsaunders wrote: »

Cheers - we was not offered any GAP insurance when we took out the insurance. Would have taken it if we were offered it as its only few hundred pounds as well.

Don't you have to complete a form stating you've refused GAP insurance when it gets offered at the point of sale? Surely you'd remember that.

facade

Not that it matters to you much as everybody is insured anyway, but I'm surprised that your insurance would pay out for the other cars, as the fire was not a result of your negligence, or something that you could have foreseen.

(before you read that BMWs spontaneously combust that is, as obviously, parking a car that you know could burst into flames at any moment near property would be the height of negligence).

photome

facade wrote: »

Not that it matters to you much as everybody is insured anyway, but I'm surprised that your insurance would pay out for the other cars, as the fire was not a result of your negligence, or something that you could have foreseen.

(before you read that BMWs spontaneously combust that is, as obviously, parking a car that you know could burst into flames at any moment near property would be the height of negligence).

I would be disappointed if my car was written off by a fire in another car and then found I couldn't claim from the othe cars insurance

loskie

if the nissan is in effect "owned" by the finance co then if it is written off they will receive the payout so it may not be your problem what they achieve.

facade

photome wrote: »

I would be disappointed if my car was written off by a fire in another car and then found I couldn't claim from the othe cars insurance

So would I, but I don't believe you would be covered, there has to be an element of blame to claim against a third party.

If an arsonist set fire to the other car you would have to claim against him, not the owner of the car.

When the Renault down the road burst into flames and pretty much burned down the owner's house (The plastic soffits disappeared, as well as the window frames, good job the Fire Brigade were quick) it was the house insurance that paid for the house repairs.