Cub Cadet caught Fire! Use with caution!

[gcbailey]

I've got a '07 LT1045 just like yours... without the melted stuff... sorry.

I guess you would call it a "heat shield" but mine has a plastic scoop on the inside of the hood that helps draw heat away from the engine. I don't have a pic, but I can get one. How effective it is, I dunno... How many hours did it have on it? I've got about 138 on this one....

[nuzzget]

That's a real bummer man. Did it make any weird sounds before it started on fire? Like was it running poorly or perhaps maybe a little to hyperactive is what i like to say if it runs at higher idle.

[papaglide]

that looks like it was one heck of a fire/conflagration caused by something more than faulty wiring. must have happened rather quickly too

[tinkerman73]

Boy, sad to see that esp. on such a new tractor! Now, heres some thoughts. Oil, even hot is hard to catch on fire unless there is fire! Fuel is hard to ignite without spark in raw form. It is the fumes more, and again with spark. Mufflers if good, being only 2 years old, should still be good dont create a ton of heat. Now, if there is a hot wire thats shorting, it alone wont do that either. But it will cause the engine and muffler/exhaust to run much hotter! Then if there is a fuel leak cause by a quickly deteriorating fuel line(from the heat) that allows the gas to leak out and the arc from the shorted out wire would start a fire. So ultimately, there probably is no one thing that caused it! If the wire got shorted out, it could be considered a factory issue. However they could very easily still say poor maintenance. You should have checked those! LOL. Inferior parts is what caused it in any sense! Also as much as you hate hearing it, home owners insurance if you have it is the only good way to replace this machine! Not a satisfying answere at all. But thats beurocracy at its finest. If you do not have home owners insurance, Then I really do pitty you! I can say, my 805 I bought used in good running condition. They had a car battery in it. Well after using it for a couple of weeks, it stopped running. Would not start back up. I figured a bad wire and I jumped the starter selenoid and it ran and I rode it back to my truck to see what was wrong with it as the PTO did not work to run the mower. Well, come to find out when I got it home, the car battery had been sitting on top of a red wire and broke through the insulation and it melted the wire and the adjacent wire. No fires. Even ran when I jumped the starter selenoid! So that does say something about the wireing by itself! I wish you the best of luck on replacing it and may you have a better experiance the next time. I would not suggest buying a newer MTD machine!

[R Bedell]

This poster has posted this situation on numerous forums over the net.

From being a Volunteer FireFighter for 15+ yrs, I have seen some strange situations where you scratch your head. The possibility exists that the fire was intentionally set to get out from under the product. One just doesn't know and never will.

This has been a controversial situation to say the least.

It is best to let this guy handle this situation as he sees fit.

[T-Mo]

The original poster only has 4 posts - all in this thread. And his last post was August 19, over a month ago. I doubt if he will post again.

[ACecil]

I agree with Roland. Something just seems strange about the fire.