Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Adjuster
@bradleyland. LOL at your mental gymnastics comment.
First off I would like to know exactly how you can guarantee that the fail safe regarding an electronic component NEVER is fire ?
Second, Do you seriously think that vehicle fires are so uncommon?! You are totally going overboard here.
Indeed , let's keep this in perspective!
While a serious issue indeed, this is certainly not an issue limited to or specific to ,BMW , it affects many manufacturers and many SUPPLIERS of parts for OEM equipment.
Do I even need to utter the word. TAKATA?
Aside from vehicle airbags , there are many components that have led to fires in many different vehicles.
BMW had an issue with this in the X5 years ago and issued like this go back to the Ford Pinto or before.
I've already had a battery cable replaced on my 1M- do you think failures of it wouldn't have resulted in a potential fire risk ? 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_fire
According to the page above approximately 280,000 ACTUAL vehicle fires occur in a year. I wonder how many of those began due to an electronic component or part like a battery, fan, cruise control module , etc etc.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/engine-...ecalled-fords/
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loca...374150891.html
Lamborghini and Ferrari models are well known for fire risks particularly in older models.
Take a surf on over to the NHTSA web site and play around and see how many vehicle recalls are due to an eventual fire hazard.
Moral of the story - it's a recall. Check for your model and if it's affected then look for your notice and call your dealer. When fire hazard is a concern you seriously may wish to consider parking your vehicle away from the residence. |
Not sure which of us you are responding to, but I didn't say you can guarantee anything. What I said was "Any electrical connector that can cause a fire on its own without tampering is a serious issue." Fire is an immediate threat to life and property, it's not just getting stuck on the side of the road. The reason I commented and as Bradleyland said was to not "get the pitch forks out", but more because I think it's likely there are similar issues lurking on newer models as well. Should we also park newer BMW's outside so we don't burn our house down and risk our family's lives?
The most common way to minimize electrical fire risk is to over design for current and voltage handling capacity of wiring and connectors, use high quality metals (i.e. non corrosive) especially at high current contact points, and use fusing to protect the wiring. Apparently they (BMW) knew this and according to the NHTSA report ["The recall component (blower-regulator wiring harness) has tin coated connectors at the end of the harness, while the non-recall component has silver coated connectors at the end of the harness"] the connector was changed to silver (more expensive than tin) contacts at some point in time.
Being an engineer myself for many years I realize it 's not possible to make something perfect, but this is bad engineering and cost cutting.