Chris (SalemMINIdriver) contacted me today about the PW MCS which caught fire and was flat-bedded to MINI of Peabody this weekend – in fact we were still at the dealership after the Spring Rally when the car arrived!
With Chris’ permission, and to help him with any possible warranty disputes, I visited his car and took some pictures … From the outside, there was obviously a fire under the air vent below the windshield on the passenger side, this is the area where the ABS/DSC control module lives, and from under the hood it’s clear that just a small part of that module was the source of the heat:
Slightly worrying is that this happened to his MINI while it was parked – someone saw the smoke and alerted Chris, and he was able to minimize the damage by disconnecting the battery, and by the use of a luckily nearby fire extinguisher!
Perhaps slightly more worrying is that a very similar event happened just over a year ago, to Donna/Mike.
Certainly two of these failures out of all the MINIs sold is not an alarm – hopefully we’ll never hear of another one …
You can read about the original fire here on NAM; you can read about the new fire here on NAM and here on MINI2.
M&I / GBMINI 
Ah yes I remember donna/mikes, which was much more of a fire. Chis was very smart and lucky to extinguish the fire before it caught anything more..and it looks like the damage can be somewhat repairable. I think the white powder all over the windshield etc is simply from the extinguisher. But the big question is why did this happen if the car was off.
Burning MINI Festival?
This has happened a few times here in the UK (sint isolated incident) so much so it appeared on the TV program ‘watchdog’ a while ago.
http://www.kenet.co.uk/bmw-problems/
Amazing that there is another case of this. I sure hope there is just a few defective ABS parts out there.
As I read on a NAM thread this problem is not unique to MINIs which is interesting.
This has happened a few times here in the UK – while also scary and tragic, that is not the same problem; from the web site you link to, that car looks to have suffered a “simple” engine fire, nothing to do with the ABS/DSC module.
Isn’t brake fluid really flammable? Lucky they got it put out before it got through the lines.
Unfortunately, this is becoming more common. My ’03 MCS caught fire last week. Since then I’ve compiled a list from various message boards of known events in the US. Mine is #5, “Peanut”:
(#1) ’02 MCS (Scooter) burned in CA last year, totalled, cause determined to be ABS control unit, parked, 60K+ miles;
(#2) ’04 MCS burned CA time unknown, saved by fire extinguisher, cause determined to be faulty power steering unit, parked, 34K+ miles;
(#3) ’03 MCS (MyTMaus) burned VA May ’05, totalled, cause suspected to be ABS control unit, driving, 90K+ miles;
(#4) ’04 MCS burned MA Nov ’04, saved, caused by faulty ABS control unit, 33K miles (info from this story on Ian’s board);
(#5) ’03 MCS (Peanut) burned CA May ’05, saved by fire extinguisher, cause determined to be faulty power steering module, 61K miles
(#6) ’03 MC(S?) burned NY April 29, 2006, saved by water from garden hose, cause determined to be power steering unit, parked, unknown miles (from the story it appears to still be under warranty)
Jujubee’s post and a little more detail here (scroll down the page to find Jujubee’s post)
You can find links and pics to most of the other instances here (via cross-referencing threads):
MINI Obituary
Another one I heard about today:
(#7) ’03 MC burned CA May ’05, saved by fire extinguisher, caused by faulty power steering unit, don’t know if it was parked but given the small amount of damage it was most likely parked; if the owner had been driving at the time there would surely have been a lot more damage before it was noticed, 36K miles; heard about it from my Motoring Advisor this afternoon when I stopped in to check on Peanut.