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Basically, 4 nanos in the past 3 months have caught fire.

Total sales have been close to 6500.

Any idea on what is it that causes nanos to self combust?

Each of these fires has been in the engine area

Pls add the appropriate tag.. I couldnt find any

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2 Answers 2

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As per discussions on a popular Indian motoring forum, Tata Motors had identified the root cause as the starter motor. A defect in the starter motor caused it to continue running even after the engine fired up, because of which it would burn out, and the materials surrounding its housing would ignite. This has been fixed now, and the subsequent batches of nano's do not have this problem.

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Yes.. I noticed the posts today thanks –  Akash Sep 9 '11 at 13:00
Sifting through some other comments by Tata Motors rep's was needed though. Their first reaction to burning nano's was that there was some foreign elements in the exhaust pipe which combusted and caused the fires, I think these were just knee-jerk responses to shift the blame from the manufacturer to the dealer, as the dealer is responsible for ensuring such things are covered in the pre-registration/delivery-inspections. –  Shrinivas Sep 12 '11 at 6:07

I don't know anything about the Nano in particular, but engine bay fires (that aren't due to catastrophic engine failure) are usually the result of either:

  • An oil leak that collects somewhere and eventually catches on fire.


  • A fuel line/injector leak. Look for fuel lines rubbing against something and wearing through.
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