My 2008 hyundai elantra happened to combust into flames. the car hasn’t been moved since the morning, it wasn’t till late at night that a neighbor had alerted me and my family that my car is on fire. I want to ask if any one has had this problem with this type of car. if so, were you able to obtain help for this incident or is it all a lost cause.
I have not heard of this issue with Elantras or any Hyundai for that matter.
What’s lost about the cause? The car caught fire. That will total this 10 year old car as far as the insurance is concerned. Take the cash and move on. Don’t expect the factory to make this right for you on a 10 year old car. If it wasn’t insured, Sorry about your loss. Sell the crispy pile to a junkyard for scrap.
I hope you are OK and there was no other property damage. As @Mustangman said a 10 year old car is not a warranty issue. I assume the police and fire dept responded. They probably asked if you left a cigarette in the car, smelled electrical smell, had an argument with someone, broke up with boy/girlfriend etc. Unless there is an obvious fault or cause & origin not much to learn here. If you were insured, the insurance co ‘may’ investigate. Depends on how much they paid out or if the police deemed it suspicious. This car has a value of about $2,000, the investigation will cost more than the pay out. If you google Elantra car fires not a lot turns up.
My boss lost his house to a fire of unknown sources related to his boat in the garage, sorry for your loss.
You are not the only one …please read this https://www.abcactionnews.com/money/consumer/taking-action-for-you/car-catches-fire-in-garage-and-nearly-burns-down-family-home
Oh come on. That’s tantamount to rabblerousing. Right from the article:
We did some digging and could find no pattern of complaints involving Hyundai Elantra’s catching fire.
You managed to find one article about a 9 year old Elantra catching fire. 2 late 2000’s Elantras catching fire is not a pattern, and is not evidence that anything is wrong with the design or assembly of the cars.
OP, your car was more than a decade old. That’s more than enough time for rodents to chew wires, or any number of other potential causes of fire. There’s no way to reasonably conclude that this is Hyundai’s fault. Let your insurance company cover your loss and move on.
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I’m not aware of any make specific problem. But cars catch fire all the time, for various reasons. There was a VW on the side of the freeway the other day on fire I happened upon. The fire truck was hosing it down, but there was still major flames. One friend of mine had her car catch fire b/c the starter motor got stuck in the “on” position and she didn’t realize it. She parked the car (on the street fortunately), went inside her apartment, and looks out the window to see what all the commotion is about. Oh, oh, her car is in blazes. Significant fire damage to adjacent cars happened too, to her chagrin. Hopefully in your case nobody was injured and the property damage was limited to just your car alone. If so, count your blessings.
my 2008 hyundai elantra caught fire in my garage last year. nhtsa id number 10993003 https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2008/HYUNDAI/ELANTRA/4%2520DR/FWD#safety-ratings-frontal
I have to believe that the fire department and your insurance company will investigate the fire and try to determine specific cause. Unless and until they can do this, you have no basis to suggest that Hyundai is in any way responsible. If they DO determine that a manufacturer defect caused the fire, at that time you can speak to an attorney… however he/she will probably simply tell you that your limits of recovery are those of your insurance coverage.
Of course if they determine that you left a lit cigar in the ashtray and it fell on the floor or something like that, your insurance may not want to cover the loss. Investigations can be a double-edged sword.
Sincere best.
Don’t take everybody seriously on here.
Who are you addressing?
the person who claims spontaneous combustion on their car. Who btw hasn’t been heard from since the post and it’s the only post they’ve ever put on here. There are people who think this kind of thing is funny, just take a look at some of the questions on quora.
Relax. Whether it’s a crank post or a person with a serious problem, it isn’t worth getting excited over. 
ahh i see. you one of those that think nothing is worth getting excited about.
actually, I wasn’t excited, I didn’t say anything that could be construed as excited so I don’t know where your comment comes from, but don’t talk down to me pal. this person is yanking your chain so bad it’s ridiculous. who mentioned fire department and insurance companies?
So why do you think that person is yanking a chain Carboncrank?
Are you saying a car can’t spontaneously combust and burn to the ground while maybe taking everything around it to the ash pile?
the_same_mountainbike is not talking down to anyone and has always been the epitome of courtesy. I’ve been on this forum for 15 years or more and have never seen mountainbke be rude and crude to anyone.
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separate what’s possible from what is probable. quantum mechanics says that literally everything is possible but somethings are more probable than others. the world exists on a bell curve of probability outcomes. I’m not going to spend much time worrying about the scientifically real possibility my next moment might find me on the other side a wall.
what makes this improbable that it even happened is someone posted this feb 27 and hasn’t been back. The poster created the profile, spent 1 minute reading 1 post, created 1 post, and hasn’t been back. I don’t need to be told to relax when I point that out. I consider that being talked down to and how it made me feel matters.
i have a lot to contribute here. I’m not going to get dragged into playing defense every time I write something.
do you know what spontaneous combustion is? It’s a real phenomena. cars don’t spontaneously combust. if a car catches fire in the middle of the night there’s a reason, and it has nothing to do with what kind of car it is nor is it a maintenance/repair issue. The odds of someone intentionally setting a car on fire far far far outweigh the odds of it being something inherent to a design flaw in the car itself. In fact, people have set their own cars on fire to collect insurance just like happens with buildings. But all this is a waste because it didn’t happen. If the poster wanted an answer to something that really happened don’t you think they would have come back?
I don’t think the post is real. it is something that happens on internet forums . It wastes people time. it won’t waste mine. If I see one I doubt I’m going to say so although it will never be this long form I’m doing now.
Don’t get played. There are people here with real questions.
That statement is not logical . People post on here all the time and never return after the first post . My position is that something happened and the person has moved on .
Well, actually, it’s a real phenomenon…
I don’t think the OP meant spontaneous combustion literally.
The fire started for some logical reason, within the realm of science.
By “spontaneous” the OP is saying that they were not there to observe.
Poor choice of word, but nothing to get your knickers in a knot over.