Not thinking, several months ago I purchased a big set of fuses on Ebay from a Chinese vendor. When they arrived, I recall beng impressed by the quantity.

Our Jaguar XJR has shown an increasing propensity to blow cooling fan fuses after being driven through the local touch free car wash. As a fundamentally lazy person, I just started buying more fuses and built that into the car wash price.

Anyway, I recently had an experience in our Jag when the high pressure jets from the touch free car wash provided some sort of short circuit opportunity and the Chinese fuse didn't blow, but instead melted the plastic fuse housing, then the fust panel, then the wiring harness until the fuse lost enough connectivity as to break the circuit. Maybe I have the sequence wrong, but that's the sum total, regardless.

Sweet.

As you might imagine, being a fundamentally lazy person, I'm extremely nervous about inadvertantly setting one of my cars on fire, thereby creating a lot of the very aggravation I was hoping to avoid by constantly taking the easy way out.

Lesson learned.

From now on, I will only buy counterfeit Buss fuses at my local chain auto store, paying inflated prices for the dubious privilege. At this point, the risks are too great, and I really don't want to be the chump on the side of the road as his car melts down alongside him.

 

This is what happens with the Harbor Freight (Chinese) fuses. Looks lik the Chinese have a loooong fuse

 

Two brands: Buss/Bussman & Littelfuse

just use these.

Alan

 

Jeez talk about defeating the purpose.

Hope you're able to get the Jag back to normal operation and source what is causing the short.

 

Scary! Just went through my fuse collection and chucked all that weren't Buss or Littlefuse. The ones I chucked I bought from an auto supply store (not HF), and were unmarked. Now for the CE panel - fortunately the brand markings are on the outside edge of the fuse, which makes it easy. Thanks for the heads up on this one guys, hell of a thing to replace your fuel lines to reduce the chances of a fire and then have your car go up in flames because of a few cents worth of fuse!

 

I did the exact same thing, I had a box of chinese fuses as well from ebay and they went in the trash as well.

 

Just curious-- How many fuses do folks go through in a year? Or a decade? I think I've replaced one in the 928 (interior light fuse sacrificed while changing a bulb), and one in my now departed Explorer (alternator excitation fuse), total of two fuses in the last 20 years of driving/maintaining. I've never had the urge to have anything bigger than the the little six-fuse Buss-pak assortment in the car.

 

In 27 years i have not replaced a fuse on my 81. I still have the original six fuse pack as well, never opened it, still taped up! Same on my other cars, even my 914 which are known to have frequent fuse problems.

 

Not so many - similarly due to careless acts also mostly with the interior lights. I've probably added more fuses for additional accessories than I have actually ever burned up & had to replace.

However I do have a box with 10 of each size used in a 928 in my road kit - its really more of a community service thing though (I'm ready!).

And no none of them are Chinese fuses - I bought some once and in a side by side comparison the quality differences are quite evident..

Alan

 

My 83 has the old ceramic fuses and I think I replaced more than half a dozen when I looked over the CE panel, but only fuses that were blown were the 0.5 amp to the door locks.

 

A few years back Wurth sent me a bunch of replacement fuses that turned out to be made from plastic instead of ceramic, that did not work well at all.

 

Blower motor circuit and rear AC circuit are about the only replacements I've done, so yep, it's a minor thing - so minor I would feel REALLY STUPID if I didn't take care of it and there was a catastrophic problem as a result. Also, I would add Cooper Bussman to the list of good brands - made in USA, check their site.

 

changed a couple that went at the same time as the associated bulbs blew plus the one that blows when you are clumsy fitting new inside lights.