welll... I bet this has never happened to anyone...BUT... are there any electrical gurus on the forum here?? if so, PLEASE let me know what the crap happened to my car......So, heres how it all happened:
I have aftermarket foglights, and they quit working on me this afternoon, but I was too busy to deal with it... but later tonight I was just chillin in my friends apartment complex parking lot while me and some buddies are talkin, and I decide to see if maybe just the fuse is blown or something....Well it wasn't, but then I remembered, that the switch went bad once on my old foglights, so maybe that happened here... sure enough it was the switch... and I needed to rerun the wires anyway, so I just started to pull em out.... oh wait, im a complete retard and forgot to unhook it from the battery.......I had the switch mounted beside the dashlight dimmer ****, and it ran behind the dash, and close to the fuse panel.... right as it passed that general area: mucho sparko, then some quick flames, and a good bit of smoke.... so I run to get something to put it out, but came back and there was nothing wrong, cept the fact that absolutely nothing electrical in my car worked except the dash lights, power door locks, headlights, and tail lights.... speedo, tach,cruise,radio,heater/ac, brake lights, turn signals, windows, overhead lights, odometer... all of it... gone..alternator... yeah its dead too cus the car died on my way home....and now all the windows are down, cant go up, sunroof is open, the battery is COMPLETELY dead, and yeah.....what the hell did I do to my car??? I'm sure no one is gonna know, but im flippin out right now.......its 5:13 AM and I JUST got home, been chillin on the side of I-95 and riding in a towtruck with a sketch guy for way too long... and I dont know if theres something as simple as replacing the fuse panel..... or if the digital/electrical parts of my entire dash, and everything else that doesnt work is alllll shot/shorted out..... hell if I know.... this could cost me so much money...............

 

check all the fuses first. then rip open whereever caught on fire and look for damaged wires.

 

Check the fuseable link.

 

hey bro i hate to say this but post some pics

 

I say check all the fusible links and and your fuse panel. If you need to replace the fuse panel, let me know, I have a spare one...it owuld need fuses,but I have the panel. Just check everything, and get a new battery...seems you may have shorted out the entire system.

 

you call that a fire?
good luck fixing it.

 

Yeah, I pulled out a few random fuses in the fuse block, and they all were good. I'm gonna pull off all of the dash right there so I can see where the actual sparks were, because looking under there with a flashlight, I don't see any wires that look bad....
What are the fuseable links???
Thanks for the input guys! I'll try to get some pictures once I find out where it's bad.....

 

Thats the longest sentance I've ever read.

 

ok.........I guess if you don't consider the "..." sentance breaks... then yes

 

damn man...that almost happened to me too just a month ago..

was tweaking my head unit, positive and negatives somehow hit each other and the power wire going to the battery was going down like a TNT rope fast...opened the hood, and cut it off with just a second left before it woulda become more chaotic than had already happened...

 

yeah.... Everything happened so quick. I'm afraid that the whole wiring harness has shorted out on me.... I don't have the electrical knowledge to track down whats bad and whats not.. I think I may have to just take it to Nissan or an electrical specialist or something... who knows

 

man I thought u were talkin about the whole car just goin up in a blaze of glory...

 

Yeah, I was going crazy last night... and the fact that I saw actual fire under my dash just freaked me out.....

 

your title is VERY misleading....max going up in flames ? ... says you had a small fire in your dash ... max going up in flames leads people to believe that your WHOLE car was on fire ... defintitely find an "uto electrical specialist"

 

ok, I am aware of this... no need to say it again... Thanks for the input

 

In short, the small "fire" took some of the circuits out! Even with pictures, it would be impossible for anyone here to tell you how to rewire or fix the circuits that got burnt. Your best bet is to take your car to an automotive electrical shop. You are too dangerous to work on your own car anyway. Rule #1, always always always disconnect the + terminal of your battery before you start working on any electrical component of your vehicle. Rule #2, always keep an automotive fire extinguisher especially if your one of those people who love to tinker around with your vehicle's electricals.

 

I'm too dangerous to work on it my own??? mmmm..... ok guy...you don't know who I am, so i'de appriciate you keep that to yourself....
1. I knew that, I disconnect the battery if i'm doing ANY work on my car...
2. I always have one in my car, but when I was cleaning my car out before I left for the weekend, I didn't put it back in, and didn't notice it was gone till I got to chapel hill.....
I'm taking it to Nissan this afternoon, cus my dad and I went through some wires with a volt meter, and think we tracked down what the problem was.....
Thanks for the input, though!

 

dammit, and i was hoping to see a torched max in this thread.

 

I'm not sure that it works this way on the Max, but I did something similar to my other vehicle and it melted the wire going to the alternator. Everything was better once I replaced the melted line.

 

lol, I don't think anyone will ever have the heart to take such a picture, if a Max goes up in flames one would just stand there and watch in horrific awe, I know I wouldn't want to see my max go up in flames

 

hahaha... I got a video of a GTi burning down to the frame..... You wanna see that????
I dropped it off at Nissan today, and it looks like it might just be replacing the alternator, interior fuse panel, and a 100 AMP fuse that I didn't think to check....
HOPEFULLY thats it... the electrical technician is supposed to call me back at the end of the day....

 

hahah, definately wanna see a GTi goin up in flames,

well hopefully ur problem will be fixed... good luck with that

 

you guys are retarded - give him a break. id be freakin out as well and prob post a dramatic title too. if you cant help him then shut up.
Mike - sorry about that. Gimme a call if i can help at all.

 

Hopefully stealership won't get you for an arm and a leg, its best to have connections there before you go. If they suspect anything wiring harness related they may want to replace the whole thing...good luck, you probably would have needed to just cut out burnt wire and resplice with good to get it going, but it would have been a little time consuming, probably less money, but time consuming.

 

man sux 4 u man, i had a small incident too. I was installing my new battery and I was tightening the ground ratchet. Well I thought about covering the positive side with cloth or something but it slipped out of my mind. So anyways the ratchet slips and the handle touched the positive side, so there was a pretty big spark. then i just removed the ratchet, didn't hurt much just 12 volts. Then i smelled barbaque chicken. I think its fine, because the ratchet touched the positive to negative completing a circuit.

 

Did you see it make a black mark on your ratchet? It's only 12v but its strong enough to do some pretty serious damage. It's a good idea that when your gut feeling or instinct tells you to do something like this, don't be lazy. Do it and take precautionary measures. The minimal time you are saving yourself from doing the right thing can cost you a whole lot more in the end.

 

Replaced the 75 amp fuse, and the fuse panel... its all fixed up!!!!!!!!
Now, all my mods are goin on tonight!!!
sweeeeeeet

 

so...
long story short....
check your fuses when you cause a short.

 

"its 5:13 AM and I JUST got home, been chillin on the side of I-95 and riding in a towtruck with a sketch guy for way too long..."
hahahaaha^^ those tow truck drivers.......

glad to hear things are going your way now

 

well I still don't know where the fuse they were talking about is... I do know the fuse cost me 18 freakin bucks! and 75 bucks to do "diagnostic", and he said it would cost me 35....... ahh well.... My car is fixed and i'm happy!

 

what 18 for a fuse? shiet thats fawked up

 

yeah it is... but oh well....
Just finished installing the rest of my exhaust, Bens long travel rear strut mounts, and strut bars..... I'm done with mods on this car till the turbo goes on... WOOHOO!!

 

Well I hoped you learned something from this. Disconnecting your battery is a good idea, but an even better one is NEVER EVER connect anything to the battery without fusing it within 12 inches or so! I don't know how many dumb ppl have come into my store that have installed their own amp and run the power wire around the fender...and didn't even bother to fuse it under the hood. Whats with you guys, you like catching your cars on fire?

 

I did have an inline fuse about oh.... 7 3/8" away from the battery..... and it wasn't run around the fender...

 

Sounds like a HUGE headache

 

Those guys tried to save themselves $20 bucks on fuse and quality holder and have no idea about the dangers they've put themselves and their passengers thru. A short could quickly occur and instant fire will ensue while they try to pull the car over. Furthermore, they have no fire extinguisher to put it out. Double strike.

Another classic one that people don't think of doing is putting a grommet around the power wire to protect it from being pricked or punctured. After drilling a hole thru the firewall, the edge of that hole could be very sharp. It could cut right thru thick insulated power wires easy. I'd say you could never have enough fuses to protect your system.