ReneR

Interesting development with my insurance claim. Seems that my insurance company is looking to claim costs from the manufacturer and have initiated an official dispute. Wonder if their salvage contractor was able to identify the cause. Would be good to know, also in terms of warning other users of cars with similar design/build. If they are successful, I would also get the excess back from the insurance. Not a big deal, but would help with the unexpected expenditure resulting from the incident. They have actually settled the claim with me for just under £2,000 which I think is fair for a 13 year old car with 166K miles on the clock.

Many thanks for taking the time to reply and share your research in such detail. It is much appreciated. Police, fire service, my insurance, and I were all completely dumbfounded by the event. The police have filed a report including the CCTV they looked at, so hoping that is enough for the insurance, but as I wrote, it is an old car (14 years) and with 160k miles on the clock, so not expecting much from them. But as you write, it is also about understanding what actually happened as I was completely baffled by the event. Might also help provide some basis for a hypothesis I can provide to the insurance company if necessary.

Not an Audi owner, so apologies for gatecrashing the forum, but I have a VAG car and the exact same thing just happened to my Skoda Roomster 1.6 TDI this morning and police, fire services and insurance company are completely baffled. The car was last driven Saturday 11/1/2015 evening with sub-zero temperatures here in London, after a long drive down from the North. No problems, no fault alerts, not problems with the drive or the car, all working super smoothly. This morning (Monday 13/1/2025) police arrive at the door at 8.10am to report my car round the corner was on fire and asking me to attend the scene. Like the original post, fire broke out spontaneously in the engine bay at around 7.30am when passers by called the fire service and police. Passenger cabin and fuel did not catch fire, but the front is entirely burned out and the front of the car is on the ground. Tires suspension all gone. Police asked for CC-TV footage and said that at around 7.15am the alarm goes off, and then shortly after there are flames and smoke. Waiting for recovery and removal now, after speaking to the insurance. Thinking that before the alarm went off, even a short-circuit would have not been possible if the electrics were off. Could the alarm have made the electrics come on and then there was a short-circuit or would the alarm go off because there was a fire? I am wondering if, like the original poster, some water had got in somewhere and frozen and then with the thawing today triggered some electrical fault. Old trusted car with plenty of millage, so fear there will be very little from the insurance for it.