:(

Last Wednesday my beautiful T5 wagon suffered significant fire damage. I arrived home from a quick run to the supermarket at about 7:30pm and parked the car on the street outside my house. At about 10:00pm I went out to move the car into the driveway, and discovered that the interior had gone on fire. It looks like the passenger side seat heater caused the fire - though I'm not really sure at this point. Only the passenger seat and the center console around the gear shift have been burned and melted, but the entire interior of the car is covered in a horrible black sticky soot. The windows are way beyond legal tint! Every surface is black, even inside the glove box and the armrest storage compartment, and this stuff is not easy to clean off. Since the car was parked, the ignition off, and the passenger seat heater was off, I don't really know how it could have started a fire. My wife suggested that someone might have dropped a cigarette butt in there, but the windows were up, and I'm 99% sure the doors were locked. Beside, I'm not inclined to be that cynical.

The insurance company has not yet sent out their guy to assess the damage. Meanwhile, I'd love to hear peoples opinions on what it would take to have repaired satisfactorily. Given the pervasiveness of the soot, I'm sure it's got to be inside of all the HVAC plumbing also. Can this be repaired economically, or is it likely that the car will have to be totalled? On the one hand, I really love this car - I'd most likely replace it with another similar one. Over the last two years I've invested quite a bit of time, energy and money into getting it into top notch condition with the intent of keeping it for the long haul. But, if it's always going to stink of burnt foam and leather, then I'm never going to be happy with it.

There doesn't appear to be any non-cosmetic damage. With a towel on the drivers seat to protect my clothes, the car started up and drove just fine. The only issue I noticed is that the drivers side seat heater is now always on, regardless of whether the switch is on or off - possibly another indication that there was a short circuit in the heater wiring. Browsing the archives here, I see a lot of people having issues with the seat heaters not working, but nobody seems to have had one cause a fire before.

Based on kbb.com and edmunds.com values, I figure the car is worth around $9k, but I have no doubt that the insurance company will try to low-ball me if they decide to total it. I'd think that the car could be fixed for a lot less than that, but I guess it depends on how much needs be replaced rather than cleaned.

Finally, on a more positive note, I'm thankful that this happened when the car was parked so that nobody got hurt. If it is repaired, I might just pull the fuse and live without the seat heaters and toasty behind. I'd appreciate any comments and advice you guys can offer. Thanks in advance,

-Daire