"I don't smoke in my vehicle...:" Kenosha couple's car caught fire; no one seems to know why



KENOSHA -- The driver's seat in a Kenosha couple's vehicle caught on fire, and they're left wondering what happened.

"My seat started moving on me and I`m like, that`s weird," Chuck Weiss said.

An unusual drive to work on December 7th got worse when Weiss got out of his 2016 Chevy Malibu. An OnStar alert later led him out to the parking lot.



"I was like 'Oh my God! What just happened here?'" Weiss said.

Chuck Weiss



His new car was covered in soot -- the windows blackened. When he finally got inside...

"The whole driver`s side seat was just all melted and burned and all the airbags on that side were deployed," Weiss said.

He called police, who had the vehicle towed.

According to a police report, an officer questioned Weiss about a lighter left behind in the car, and they asked him whether cigarette ash could've started the fire.

"I said I don`t smoke in my vehicle, so that can`t be possible," Weiss said.

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They later concluded the cause of the fire is undetermined.

Lynch Chevrolet



The car was then sent to Lynch Chevrolet -- the dealership where it was purchased months earlier. Chuck and Diane Weiss said that's when GM got involved.

Diane Weiss



"Their investigator couldn`t figure out why it burned," Diane Weiss said.

"They said 'Sorry, GM is not responsible for it. It`s not a warranted issue. It`s nothing on our part that caused the fire,'" Chuck Weiss said.

Chuck and Diane Weiss believe the issue was electrical -- citing a 2013 Chevy Malibu recall warning drivers about seat fire risks.

On Tuesday, January 31st, GM told FOX6 News that recall "was for a specific defect. It is unlikely that the problem...is the identical problem."

Chuck and Diane Weiss said they just want answers.



"If this is a problem, make the public aware of it so that it doesn`t happen to somebody else," Chuck Weiss said.

FOX6 News reached out to Lynch Chevrolet where a sales rep told FOX6 News "the customer was smoking in the vehicle."

When we asked to speak with the Service Department, we were told they needed authorization, and they would call back. Our call was not returned.