Electrical Smoke

Hello All, When I turned my left turn signal on today, in my 98 Explorer with 50K miles, the green arrow did not blink, (was on steady) and smoke started coming out of the area the emergency flasher button is located. I turned the signal off and stopped the vehicle. I checked all the lights and they still work and the signal has gone back to normal. No more smoke! Any idea what happened? Should I pay to have it checked since it is working ok now?

George Evans Newport News, VA

Reply to
George Evans
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George.. that smoke has left your steering column is an indication that something was in better shape than it is now. Without knowing what has been affected, it's just a crap shoot - the next time the smoke comes, you just might wind up looking for something new to drive...... or worse. At the very least, waiting for the fire department to come would rate as a real inconvenience in my daily schedule.

Good suggestion would be to get it checked ASAP.... best suggestion would be to disconnect the battery and have it checked before driving.

In the last month or so, I had a customer from my previous employ call me about his daughters 2000 Chev K1500.... every time it rained and she drove through a puddle, the starter would engage and self destruct. Six starters later, they decide to investigate.... I think I found the orignal spot where the wires chaffed through. I finally pry the story out of him...... there was an intermittent minor electrical problem and they felt is was of minor consequence. By pushing the envelope, they now have spent over $1000 on rebuilt starters and are looking at a $1500 wiring harness (rough guess, another 6 hours or so to install the harness).

Good luck, whatever your decision...

-- Jim Warman snipped-for-privacy@telusplanet.net

Reply to
Jim Warman

My 2000 Explorer did that about 2 months ago. While stepping on the brake and putting the left blinker on it would 'stick' and smoke would come out around the 4-way flasher button, even when I turned the blinker off. The only way I could stop it was to take my foot off of the brake.

I took it to the dealership for some other work and got them to check it out. They took the multi-function switch apart and said that they could smell the burnt smell, but nothing looked burned. They replaced the switch anyway. I think it was $20 or $30 (CDN).

Reply to
Tazz

I'm tempted to say that, since some smoke escaped, the electrical system is now running at reduced pressure, and won't light the lights to full brightness anymore, but I'm afraid that might be taken as an attack... :-)

However, the smoke is definitely a sign that something went wrong. You obviously have a wiring problem. These things *never* heal themselves, and have a nasty habit of recurring at the wrong time. Wiring problems, especially those that don't happen all the time, or even at predictable times, can be costly/time consuming to find. :-( But not fixing them can be even more costly (think stranded, at night, without any means of communication).

Pewrsonally, I'd have it looked at, and fixed.

Reply to
Bill Funk

A friend of mine had this happen on his 2000. The ford dealer looked at it and could find nothing! So now he just has to wait for something to burn up.

Reply to
JaWise

This is just the reason why I have a fire extinguisher bolted within easy reach on every vehicle I have owned for the last 20 years.

I had a rear wheel bearing catch fire on a Corvette years ago and the fire extinguisher put out the grease fire before the fiberglass caught fire. I was three miles from a phone so the car would have been a total loss. The really funny thing was I bought the Extinguisher two day earlier.

Reply to
Matthew B. Tepper

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