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Car started on its own

Tiny
JFORTIN123
  • MEMBER
  • 2004 SATURN ION
  • 2WD
  • MANUAL
  • 230,000 MILES
We had a recall done at a Chevrolet dealer for the Electric Power Steering Assist, Ignition Lock Cylinder and Key, and Ignition Switch Replacement in our Saturn Ion. After a couple weeks later, the car was parked outside our garage in first gear. During the early morning, while we were sleeping, the car started on its own, without the key in the ignition, and drove ten feet up to the garage wall and sat there running and overheated and caught on fire and then caught our home on fire and it completely destroyed everything, but thankfully our family made it out alive. Would something with the recall parts, have something to do with why the car started and moved on it's own? The insurance company had the car investigated, and put the dealership on notice for possibly installing it wrong, and GM on notice for maybe sending a faulty recalled part, but the investigators couldn't pinpoint what went wrong, because it was too damaged by the fire. They said somewhere in the dash area of the car, is where it started. What do you think would cause the car to start and move and then catch on fire?
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Thursday, February 21st, 2019 AT 11:33 AM

11 Replies

Tiny
KEN L
  • MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
  • 47,536 POSTS
Hello,

I'm sorry for the accident and glad no one was hurt. In all the years of me doing this I have never heard of any like this. I will post this thread in the expert forum to see if we can get anyone else to chime in.
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Friday, February 22nd, 2019 AT 12:53 PM
Tiny
ASEMASTER6371
  • MECHANIC
  • 52,797 POSTS
Good afternoon,

No where did I see anything about the connector or the harness.

The connector may have been damaged and they never replaced the pigtail causing it to short to power.

Very hard to determine without seeing it. You may need a second opinion from another investigator.

Roy
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Friday, February 22nd, 2019 AT 1:03 PM
Tiny
STEVE W.
  • MECHANIC
  • 13,452 POSTS
I would side with Roy, you need someone to do a second investigation, maybe get a duplicate car and see if anything they did could have caused it.
Did the car have a remote starter on it?
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Friday, February 22nd, 2019 AT 1:48 PM
Tiny
JFORTIN123
  • MEMBER
  • 4 POSTS
The Forensic fire investigator, SIU, and representatives from the dealership, GM, and Chevrolet were present while they went through the car in a lab. No remote starter was ever installed. You can see in the gravel of the driveway, because it was a manual car in first gear, how the tires dug into the gravel as the car moved it up to the garage door. They thought that the ignition switch was installed incorrectly, the recalled switch was not replaced and malfunctioned or GM's recalled replacement switch was bad. But, because the car was so badly burned up, there was not much left to definitely prove one of them was at fault. I wanted to know if anything else, besides the ignition switch, could cause a car to start and move it? Could the wiring on it be faulty, or can you switch hooking up something and cause it to malfunction? I have no knowledge of how cars function, but I know that car, even being a 2006 with 235,000 miles never gave us problems, until we took it in for that recall.
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Friday, February 22nd, 2019 AT 3:37 PM
Tiny
STEVE W.
  • MECHANIC
  • 13,452 POSTS
The problem is that the run and start positions on the switch don't share anything except the power feed. When you turn the key to start it goes past the run position, and energizes the starter then springs back. That is the only time both get power. That isn't going to happen on its own. Then there is the issue of the clutch switch that also should prevent it from starting because it wouldn't have been pushed.
I suspect that it wasn't the switch itself but a problem in the wiring. That's likely why it's hard to point at a part and say "That caused it" All of the insulation burned off in the fire so finding which spot burned first is going to be really hard.
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+1
Friday, February 22nd, 2019 AT 5:27 PM
Tiny
JFORTIN123
  • MEMBER
  • 4 POSTS
We were told by the SIU investigator that when the starter wire gets attacked by fire it will actually attempt to start the vehicle and move it forward, he said that this will also bypass the need to push in the clutch. He said that if the garage door wasn't closed to stop it, it would have kept moving into the garage until it hit something, and we probably wouldn't have been as lucky in getting out. He said he had another vehicle years ago start on its own and move through a parking lot on fire. How does a car just catch on fire, to burn the starter wire? I just wanted to make sure this seems logical, from your mechanical experience. Our family is just trying to make sense of what happened to us, and fearful of it happening again.
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Friday, February 22nd, 2019 AT 8:43 PM
Tiny
KENW1
  • MECHANIC
  • 213 POSTS
After reading your last post I wanted to chime in to comfort you some. As to this happening again, I highly doubt it would ever happen to you. What you experienced was the kind of anomaly that has astronomical chances of occurring. Not only did the vehicle have to send power to the starter but power had to be transmitted to other circuits to power the fuel pump, fuel injectors and ignition coils. As Roy mentioned, this would all have to occur at the ignition switch connector. This was definitely a one in a million type thing in my opinion.
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Friday, February 22nd, 2019 AT 10:50 PM
Tiny
WILLIAM CRABTREE
  • MECHANIC
  • 95 POSTS
Another thought is that perhaps the car was just cranking and cranking and never actually started. Same as bypassing the clutch start interlock and jumpering across the starter solenoid without the key on. Car will still crank and move, but engine wouldn't start. But definitely sounds like wiring issue.
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Saturday, February 23rd, 2019 AT 2:24 AM
Tiny
JFORTIN123
  • MEMBER
  • 4 POSTS
Would the wiring issue that would make that happen, be something that was hooked up wrong at the dealer, when we had our recalls done, or, what else causes wires to malfunction out of the blue?
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Saturday, February 23rd, 2019 AT 5:13 PM
Tiny
KEN L
  • MASTER CERTIFIED MECHANIC
  • 47,536 POSTS
Hard to say without looking at it, now that it is all burned up might be tough to tell what happened.
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Monday, February 25th, 2019 AT 11:29 AM
Tiny
STEVE W.
  • MECHANIC
  • 13,452 POSTS
Those are the questions that cannot really be answered after it burnt. Without a remote start the only real option is that a power feed wire got hot enough that it melted the insulation and shorted to the starter control wire. That would have made the starter operate and with the transmission in gear the car would move forward.
Is it possible that it was caused when they replaced the switch? Yes, but with everything burnt you cannot prove it.
However, it is also possible that a wire was already rubbing through and that caused it.
At this point there really is no possible way to know. It would be like going to a restaurant and trying to determine where someone started eating their steak by examining the bone in the trash can.
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Monday, February 25th, 2019 AT 11:38 AM

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