corradoMR2

Luckily, no injuries and we heard from the fire crew the engine caught fire.


Some pics here: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/nx-...ml#post8988983

mmarshall

I hope no one was hurt or burned.

One of the things I've never liked on many late-model bread-and-butter Imprezas (WRX and STi models have a more complete set of gauges) is the lack of a dedicated coolant-temperature gauge for the engine, and the use of red and blue lights for a hot or cold engine. The blue light is supposed to go off at 140 degrees (when an engine is considered minimally warmed up), and the red light come on at the danger level (usually around 220-230 degrees or so, sometimes more). Well, if the small red light isn't working for some reason (bad bulb, wire, short, bad-socket, etc.....) or the driver is not looking directly at it, the engine can get dangerously hot. Add that to any kind of oil leak, fuel-system problem, or other combustible fluid sitting on the engine block, and you could end up with a fire. I understand that Japanese-market Imprezas do have real coolant-gauges...it's only on the American-market versions that Suburu cheaps out on it.

Of course, there are a number of things that can cause an engine to light up......one cannot automatically blame it on a malfunctioning idiot light. But the idiot lights don't help.