Block heater cord caught fire

[BLKF250]

HAs anyone ever had this happen to them? I came home today and the cord was on fire and melted itself and the cord going to my house luckly it most of just started but there were small flames has anyone ever had this problem or know what it can be iam scared to plug my truck in again after i buy a new cord.....thanks

[ToMang07]

[HOTWHEELS34]

Was it a factory cord or an Ebay one?

[BLKF250]

it was a ford factory cord the cord is brand new i just put that and a new heater elment on the truck in summer of 09......I new it was going to happen sometime because everything id go to unplug it it was always warm or hot and i could see the prongs starting to get burnt.... not sure how excatly it could happens my buddy at ford saids only thing he can think of if water was soaking in there.... I even brought a 12gauge $100 ext cord just to make sure it was getting enough power and it even that was getting hot....not sure whats going on gonna take it off tomorrow and check it out see if anything happen between the plug in the heater element and where it melted at anything happen but i doubt it

[CADASH]

If you could find what the resistance should be between the two prongs on the element you could meter them to see if its a bad element....

[cyclonestroker]

Plug into a GFI for sure. I wont plug my truck into anything unless I have a GFI for the cord, this way at least it should fault out before it catches fire. But otherwise I don't know what could cause it.

[ponyexpress94]

One thing to make sure is that you are using the shortest, heaviest gauge cord possible. The block heater draws about 15 amps so you need a cord that is rated for that. The longer the cord, the more resistance, which means more voltage drop, and more heat.

[jetjock15]

happens all the time when i used to live in AK and trucks were always plugged in. I seen a few cords melted in half, and even one duramax that burned to the ground.... You need to only use BLUE(Heavy duty) extension cords when plugging these things in... then shortest possible and use GFI if able. Even in AK when i would have my truck plugged in with right cord, the cord would melt itself in the snow.. so it stayed warm.... also i used a timer at the socket so it only kicked on 4 hours before i woke up.......

anyways, it happens... use the huge thick HD cords they come in BLUE and Yellow only

[BLKF250]

I have a heavy duty yellow cord thats a 12 or 10 gauge thick but its a 100ft cord because at my work when i plug my truck in the truck is parked a distance from the shop garage outlet which is powered by a 40amp fuse....but my house has a 15amp fuse and the cord for the truck I had one before i brought this new one (that burned) and it was always fine had it hooked up to a 3 prong 10ft or 15ft cord and never i got that hot...anyways i took it to the dealership and iam close with all the diesel techs there. So i went into shop and literally had both diesel techs look at it and they said where the connector is thats about 1ft away from the plug that you would plug into your house wasnt packed wit any grease or anything so water got into that connector piece and started there then followed the current where its less restitance which is where the plug is to the house and caught that on fire.....so now the new one packed wit grease we took it apart and packed it and put a lil electric tape around it just to make sure its sealed the best it can