NHTSA Complaint #11563997 — 2014 AUDI Q5

On 12/1, around 7:20am my fiancé and I were getting ready to leave for work; there was frost on the car so my fiancé went out to start it and turn on the defrosters. After starting the car, he turned on the heater and front and rear defrosters, he then went inside to retrieve some items we needed to load into the car. He was inside for about 5 minutes before coming out to see smoke emanating from right side of the trunk, which quickly turned into a small fire, whose point of origin was the rear fuse compartment. He ran inside to grab water to try and put it out, but due to how quickly it was spreading, as well as the fact that it was electrical nature, the water only served to temporary diminish but not extinguish the flames. We then used an ABC rated fire extinguisher from our kitchen, which did suppress and extinguish the fire. The vehicle still started, and we were able to drive it from our driveway to the side of our home, however, with the risk of it igniting again or creating any other failures, in addition to the guidance provided by our insurance company and Audi Corporate, we had the vehicle towed to an Audi dealership for further investigation. There was no indication prior to this that would lead us to believe the car would catch fire. We consider ourselves to be lucky that we were not driving as we would have no way to extinguish the fire on the side of the road. Since this incident, an investigation was done by Audi corporate. It was determined that there was corrosion within the right trunk compartment caused by water at some point which caused a short considering the body module and fuses are located there. However, Audi claims no responsibility in the water getting into the trunk or any manufacturing defects. Upon our own research though, we’ve seen many reports of Q models have sunroofs draining into the interior. The car has since been totaled by insurance due to repair estimates nearing $29,000 and taken to Copart auction.