My Go 300 caught fire this morning!

[zoidberg]

Borrowed my dad's Mini Cooper S this morning. Plugged the TomTom into the cigarette lighter, and started the car. Almost instantly, the screen went blank, there was a terrible smell and black smoke poured from the back of the satnav box. I leapt and unplugged the power supply but unfortunately it was too late - fried TomTom! It's now completely dead. I can only assume there was some sort of power surge through the fag lighter when starting the car?

Anyone heard of anything similar? Can't work out whether to approach Tomtom or the Mini dealer about it.

[combemarshal]

I'd get a multi meter and see if you get a spike under starting.
I can't see how it could be the BMW's fault though, if you were using the TomTom charger that came with the TomTom (or is official) then it has it's own built in 2amp fuse in the top of the plug, you can see it with out taking it apart, If that is the case, and the fuse didn't blow I'd go to TomTom.
You didn't manage to get any metal jamed where it shouldn't did you, or somehow get it in the headphone socket?
Or maybe picked up the wrong charger??

[fergus]

perhaps it was using a dell battery?

[SiH]

You might not have any luck if you go to TomTom with this one. I've got a Snooper S6-R and in the instructions it says to make sure it's not plugged in to the cigarette lighter when starting the engine (assume because of power surges). I'm guessing there's something in the TomTom instructions that would say something pretty similar. Worth talking to them about (and maybe it just combusted as you were driving along the road ) but don't be surprised if they say no to a refund or replacement. Good luck on this one.

[Roley130]

I can see the logic behind not having the power connected when starting as it is possible that the back-EMF from the starter motor (the instant you release the key), could give a significant voltage spike to unprotected electronics. However I would suspect all this would do is just stop it working rather than actually produce a burn out situation like this one.

[dilbert]

The most likely scenario is that the Tantalum capacitors blew up. This happens quite quickly, and is voilent and smokey. I'd not think that there is anything else in the box that would fail in this way.

Tantalum capacitors fail like this when the supply is reversed. Check the polarity of this car compared with the normal car first.

[mybrainhurts]

I blame German electricity....