MARCH STREAK OF VERY BAD LUCK :(

Last week it was a 911 call to have the paramedics take me to the hospital, this week, I'll let the pictures tell the story.

In PA, you can have what is called liability insurance. This is all I have on the car so nothing except driving privileges are covered on a 14 year old car it was not worth it with a 500.00 deductible and 3x the cost of insurance...blah, blah blah.

coming home from work...normal
got to the top of my street and smelled electrical burning...eh, so what I smelled worse in the air.
pulled the car in the garage, closed the door, nothing wrong ( or so I thought ), went upstairs...normal

about a minute or 2 later the basement smoke detector is beeping...OMFG.

I grab the extinguisher hold my breath and go downstairs thru the nasty plastic burning smoke and saw the flames.
opened back up the garage door, went out and took another breath came back in and put out the fire and turned on my 24" exhaust fan in the wall of the garage. ( and let it run for a good 5 hours to get the plastic smell out of the house )

fire dept came 5 minutes later and IF IF IF I had let the thing burn from not having an extinguisher the car would have burned a lot more, probably burned the garage, and ALL my musical gear would have been water damaged..all my basses are in cases, and although the burnt plastic smell will be in the house for days, nothing was damaged except for the car.







bad-luck-month for me first the hospital last week and now this.

That totally sucks, Bro. But the important thing is that you are OK.

people have said "Mike, you are one lucky MOFO" in all the craziness from bad things I have done in my past and never was killed or went to jail.

of course I learned 2 things -- smoke detectors are mandatory important, and so is a fire extinguisher. I have another car so I'm not pressured to buying a replacement or getting this one fixed by tomorrow. I'll add up the parts and see how much. if more than it is worth I'll look for another honda accord for a few grand cause i really like it.

Glad your OK. Let's hope you've used up your share of bad luck for the next few years...

March is usually my bad luck month too. I feel i've been lucky this month with all that's happened was getting fired from my job ... and I kinda feel like that was a good thing at this point.

This kinda freaks me our mike. My car is a 95 accord SW ... and I like mine a lot too.

The best advice I could give you is there is a wealth of u-pull-it junk yards in PA, if you were so inclined. You may gut real lucky and find the exact same matching panel and save several hundred or maybe even thousands if you DIY.

Sorry bro, that really sux.

Wow that really does suck. Good thing you & your home are OK.

thanks BD, no damage to anything but the car. Although it's over now and naturally you always say "what if", like what if it happened on the road..the car would be burned to a crisp by the time the firemen got to it, or what if I didn't have an extinguisher stuff that goes thru your mind a day later ---none of that applies in this situation so I'm still here, the musical gear in the garage although NOW THE CASES smell like burnt plastic, no smoke damage. the fire just was not burning long enough.

well Mike like you said the junkyards are FILLED with wrecked honda accords, and that is exactly what I'm gonna do because of PA liability only insurance because of the cost savings on an old car and no "check is in the mail" clause, I'll just rebuild it. I also see stuff on ebay that would last a lifetime in parts, so here's my inventory:

new door complete if possible even though the paint on the door's outside is still intact, it's a LOT easier to just replace the door.
new steering column - the wheel is melted and so is the stalk closest to the door
new weatherstripping and moldings around the top of the door where the flames melted it
new seat - although it didn't melt, the heat singed the **** out of it and YES I could be cheap and toss a seat cover on it

looks like about 1/2grands worth of parts according to the ebay sellers selling the stuff.