gstreev

More to the story, I pulled it into a Dodge dealer, when the smoke started coming out they started moving all the cars near it. Then the dash caught on fire and the car was trying to start by itself in gear. The car was engulfed in smoke and I got back in and took it out of gear.
Later the salesman offered me $5k off on a hemi charger.

Zero10

This car didn't belong to Rock in a past life, did it?.,....
Sorry, couldn't resist.

Sucks about the car. I've never seen an electrical fire in a 944 before. That looks pretty bad.
If you go through insurance I wouldn't expect them to total it since it's insured for $11,500. The damage is probably in the neighborhood of $6000-$7000. I'd go through insurance and have them fix it. Odds are you will get about 80% of a brand new interior, including a very nice crack-free dash. Just make sure you get a competent shop to do the work, or else you will have little problems all over the place for years to come.

gstreev

1st thing I did when I got it home was wet vac everything then I cleanend the
seats 3X then put leather conditioner on it. I thought I had one of the nicest
951 interiors too. Once the aduster looks at it I'll take out the seats, pull
up the carpet and remove the headliner. The smell is pretty foul.

I bought a battery disconnect at a swap meet last weekend and was planning on installing it today, this would have saved most of the damage. If only the Dodge dealer had service hours yesterday, all I needed was a 13mm wrench,
adjustable or pliers. If I had a hammer I would have broken a battery terminal off.

gstreev

So glad I bought new rear tires and had it inspected last weekend.

Stephenwz968

I swapped out the dash in my old 944, and the wiring would take a while but if your car isn't a daily driver you could take your time and do it right-if you really like the car I say save it...either buy it back from the insurance company if they decide to total it, or have them pay to get the work done...I would hate to see such a rare car get parted....good luck whatever way you decide to go.

Steve

gstreev

Not a daily driver, but I have collector car insurance on it. I hope they pay, I'll be happy with
$7K at this point. Sell the seats, get the parts I need and pay to have it rewired. Maybe
a barely streetable track car is the way to go at this point.

DFASTEST951

Glad your ok. If you rebuild, get a hold of Lart951. He parts out cars all the time. He's sure to have the parts you need. Good luck. Sorry about the car. Good job on your reaction. Could've been a lot worse.

maximus951

I really feel for you man - that's a beautiful car.
Back in the day, I did car audio and alarms for @ 6 years while in school and while I've never seen a porsche toasted like yours, there have been numerous electrical fires that our Insu replacement div. looked at. In every case, the fires were almost always caused by shoddy wiring with poor or non-existent fusing. From the looks of it and by your description, it sounds like you or a mechanic could replace all of the burned parts and attempt to patch in a new wiring harness where the factory was burned. The only problem and your adjuster knows this is that in most if not all cases of electrical short circuits, there is a chain reaction of shorted wires that begins with the initial event and usually leads to unseen damage in other parts of the car. For example, when/if the alarm wiring shorted to ground (probably a high current relay feed) that caused the insulation across that wire to superheat and burst into flames when the wire attempted to carry several hundred amps from the battery. When the insulation burned off it exposed red hot copper to every wire nearby which instantly burned through and likely triggered another short circuit and so on. The problem with this cascade of shorts is that in many cases the wires, due to the heat conducting properties of copper, can pass insulation searing temperatures over the entire length of the wire. If this event started under the dash around the ignition, you could have seared wiring, connectors, terminals and components in every direction to and from the affected harnesses. That could mean burned wires running to the DME/KLR, engine harness components, ABS, Air bag controls, fuel pump, lights, etc. I'm not trying to discourage you but any attempt to repair this car may never reveal a down-stream wiring fault unless you have the entire harness replaced and every component checked and verified. If I were you, I would (assuming you insu co. totals the car) buy it back, strip it and rebuild is a track car or part it out completely because you could end up driving a time bomb that, at a minimum, could strand you or worse, cause bodily harm in the event of another fire or accident. Whatever happens, good luck and let me know if you need any assistance.

tedesco

Something simillar happened to me about a year ago. I just moved onto the motorway and started acceleting when suddenly some smoke came out of the centre console next to the glove box. Engine kept running and I wanted to avoid to make any sudden moves so I pulled over and gently applied the brakes. When the car came to a stop there was already so much smoke in the car that I could not see anymore out of the front window. I opened the door to go to the passenger side and a big cloud of smoke left the car. I ripped out the glove box and saw that the isulation of the cables going to the air condition were burning. Until one day ago I always had a fire extinguisher in the car but I cleaned everything just before and the fire extingusher was forgotten. I am an idiot. So in my desperation I ripped out the burning cables and parts with my hands and with some old colth I finaly mangaed to stop the fire. It did not do my hand very good and besides seriouse burn marks and plasik burned into the skin it was bleeding quite heavily. I sat in the backseat and helped myself with the first aid kit. Finaly I tired to start the engine again and, Lucky me, it started and I could go home.
After close inspectioin I found that one of the screws that secures the air condition control panel (fan motor, window footwell distribution...) was too long and worked its way into the fan motor cables. They are very tight in there! This caused a short circuit and unfortunatly I found that some of the cables did not have any fuse! Even not according to the original Porsche circuit diagrams.
Everything is running again and the damage was not too big.

Chris White

OK, heres my (painful) advise – its too much work to fix. I have pulled out the main harness before – you won’t believe how complex it is and how much it is interwoven with the body.
If it were mine I would do either of the following –
Get another 951 and swap the turbo S parts.
Make a track car out of it with just minimal wiring and a fiberglass dash.

Sorry about the fire, they are very hard to restore…

reno808

i saw a carbon fiber dash? but i dunno were can you get one . If i was you i would turn it into a race car.

testarossa_td

I hate to say this...but if you get 7k or what you have it insured for, just be done and move on. Fires are no fun. I have seen the AC control unit catch fire, but yours appears fine...and as mentioned the whole wire harness thing, it would have to be a labor of love to replace that

xsboost90

FYI- i just sold a late dash to the guy that does leather dashes- get one of those, i have a wiring harness in rocks old car we can pull it out and send it up to ya- i have a few of the dash trim pieces laying around still like the gauge surround, pieces on each side of the column, ignition switch stuff, whatever you need besides a dash and some trim. Lemme know i'll pull it and save it for you. Dan.

gstreev

I just called the insurance comapny. I had it towed to my house, they will be calling me to setup
an appointment to come look at it. I just saw a high mileage 968 for $8500, maybe take some of
the stuff from mine and have 2 cars that don't run

Thanks Dan, I'll let you know what I decide to do after the insurance adjuster comes.

ApexCars

Your dash still lokks better than mine!