Retrofitting the OEM Fire Extinguisher to the Phaeton

[PanEuropean]

In Europe, you can order a fire extinguisher as an option installed at the factory. This is quite an inexpensive option - about USD $100. The fire extinguisher is neatly concealed in a carpeted compartment at the back of the front passenger footwell, more or less underneath the front of the seat. There are pictures of the OEM installation at this thread: In-Cabin Fire Extinguisher.

I think it is a good idea, from a safety point of view, to have such an extinguisher, so, I ordered the parts needed to retrofit one from my Swiss VW dealer. I went to my dealership (AMAG in Kloten) today and picked them up. Below are the photos of the parts.

I have not yet ordered the extinguisher itself, because it might be tricky for me to transport this back to Canada from Europe. A pressurized fire extinguisher is considered 'dangerous goods' so far as air cargo is concerned, and this means I will have to make some further inquiries about whether or not I can bring it back as checked baggage. I might wind up needing to ship it by 'slow post' - in other words, surface mail that goes by ship.

I don't think installation of this will be very difficult. My guess is that I will need to cut a few small slits in the carpet, to accept the tangs that are visible at the front of the base. It is held in place by a few bolts, the bolts are VW standard parts that can be ordered in North America.

Michael

Bottom side of Fire Extinguisher Holder base

Top side of fire extinguisher base, bottom side of cover

Top side of cover
This matches my sun beige carpets. I will probably need to cut slits in the existing carpet to accept the tangs you see on the front of the base assembly.

[PanEuropean]

Here's the parts description. This same information, as well as pictures of what it looks like when installed, can be found on the thread mentioned in the first paragraph of the post above.

Parts Illustration - Fire Extinguisher

[GripperDon]

I have always carried a fire extinguisher in my car. But it is in the trunk stowage area and not particurarly convient. I'll have to check my dealer and see if I can order it here in the USA

[copernicus0001]

I was at the VW dealership today and brought a printout of the ETKA parts list that Michael provided above. The parts adviser said that he could not locate any of the parts in his system that were indicated on Michael's printout, except for the tarp, which sold for $186.99.

I was planning on picking up the parts for the fire extinguisher and the warning triangle.

Michael -
What country was the parts list sourced from?? (Normally, I wouldn't need to ask this question, but you are quite the globetrotter. I see above in this thread that you ordered the extinguisher parts from a Swiss VW dealer.)

Did you obtain the warning triangle parts in Canada?

Do you have any idea for sourcing the parts in the U.S.??

Thanks Michael - I hope all is going well in Africa.

Douglas


Modified by copernicus0001 at 12:42 AM 7-28-2005

[PanEuropean]

Hi Douglas:

I bought all the parts I needed for the triangle retrofit in Canada. The thread describing the parts needed and the installation process for the triangle is here: OEM Warning Triangle in Trunk Lid Retrofit.

There is a post describing the 'tarp' that you mentioned, including pictures of this part. It is a neat little thing that flops out over the rear bumper, to prevent scuffs and damage to the rear bumper when you are loading heavy objects (boxes, luggage) in the trunk. That thread is here: Protective Cover for Rear Bumper. Although that tarp is surprisingly expensive for what it is, it's cheap insurance against the cost of having to refinish a scuffed up rear bumper.

I tried to order fire extinguisher parts in Canada, but no luck on any of them, so I ordered them from my Swiss dealer.

Michael


Modified by PanEuropean at 4:26 AM 10-3-2005

[fly4food]

I have asked Peter to see if he can get the fire extinguisher. If not, I sure would like to be on the list as well.

Philippe

[PanEuropean]

Hi Everyone:

I did a little editing (pruning) of this thread, because the discussion had veered off onto the topic of sourcing parts from a European VW dealer. We do have an arrangement now for sourcing parts from Europe, it is described here: European Parts Purchases. I hope no-one is offended that I pruned their posts from this topic - I just want to keep this post focused on the fire extinguisher retrofit.

Anyway - some retrofits are simple, and some retrofits wind up turning into a 'Pandora's Box' of parts purchases. It seems that the retrofits that appear at first glance to be the most complicated (e.g. Keyless Start) are usually the simplest ones, and the ones that you think should be super-simple - like this fire extinguisher project - turn out to be the ones that require a heck of a lot more parts than you ever thought possible. After I brought the initial tranche of Swiss parts home last month, I found out that the fire extinguisher holder - shown in the photo above - actually recesses quite deeply into the floor of the passenger footwell. This doesn't present a structural problem - I know there is a recess in the metal floor pan to accept the extinguisher holder - but it does present an installation problem, because the complete carpet segment on the front passenger side does not have a recess in it to accept the extinguisher holder.

So - back to the Swiss dealer for more parts. I have decided not to order a complete new carpet insert with a recess for the extinguisher holder (item 2 in the illustration below) for the front passenger area of the car because I really don't want to go to the trouble of removing the entire 250 pound front passenger seat from the car to install the new carpet liner - not to mention that I bet that carpet insert would be expensive. I think I'll just cut a hole in the existing carpet. Because the fire extinguisher holder is a permanent installation - bolted to the floor pan of the car - I am not too concerned about cutting a hole in the carpet insert. In fact, I bet that's the only difference between the carpet insert that I have, and the carpet insert for cars with a fire extinguisher - VW cuts a hole in the insert for you.

However - the floormat for the front passenger side (by floormat, I mean the removable bit of carpet that is held in place by two fasteners, not the actual 'base' carpet insert that is affixed to the car) is shorter on Phaetons that have a fire extinguisher, because the fire extinguisher holder takes up about 6 inches of space from the passenger seat forward. This means there is no way to escape the need to buy a new front passenger floormat that is shorter - so, I ordered one from my Swiss dealer. I will have to figure out a way to re-locate the two retaining clips on the base carpet so that they are about 6 inches further forward, to match the retaining clip holes on the new, shorter removable floormat.

Below is a parts illustration, and one of the four pages of the expanded text. The removable floormat is part number 21, you can see this at the very bottom of the diagram. It seems that there are about 6 different variations in part number suffix for the removable floormat, they work like this:

Phaetons without a fire extinguisher
Suffix B - normal floormat for cars built between May 02 and July 03.
Suffix D - normal floormat for cars built between Aug 03 and Jan 04.
Suffix F - normal floormat for cars built since February 04.

Phaetons with a factory installed fire extinguisher
Suffix A - shorter floormat for cars built between May 02 and July 03.
Suffix C - shorter floormat for cars built between Aug 03 and Jan 04.
Suffix E - shorter floormat for cars built since February 04.

I have ordered a suffix C floormat for my car - will post pictures of it when it arrives. It cost about USD $50, which is not too bad - in fact, a lot less than I expected.

Michael

Carpet Related Parts

'Fussmatte für fahrzeuge mit Feuerloescher' means 'Floormat for car with fire extinguisher'

[PanEuropean]

I picked up the shorter floormat that is required when the fire extinguisher holder is installed. It was fairly straightforward to order this from my Swiss dealer, however, I don't know if this part will be available from the North American VW dealers or not. Below is a picture of the shorter floor mat, overlaid on the normal North American floormat, and also a picture of the label from the back of the shorter floormat.

Michael

Shorter front passenger Floormat for vehicles with a fire extinguisher installed

[chrisj428]

Quote, originally posted by PanEuropean »

I will have to figure out a way to re-locate the two retaining clips on the base carpet so that they are about 6 inches further forward, to match the retaining clip holes on the new, shorter removable floormat.

I believe they simply screw into the carpet itself. If not, you should be able to ascertain their method of fastening by feeling around under the carpet once you have the hole cut.

[copernicus0001]

Michael,

Did you ever complete the fire extinguisher retrofit?? Were you able to get the fire extinguisher to Canada?? Or were you able to get an OEM part number (the fire extinguisher is made by Kiddie, but I do not know what part number - I thought I could call Kiddie and source the extinguisher directly from them).

Douglas

[GripperDon]

I found a beauty of an All chrome extinguisher with a guage and a black bracket. Mouted it in the same place as the Phaeton unit. Fits perfectly not ever noticed as the seat is moved forward a bit. Checker Auto. $50 lot better than $500

Don


Modified by GripperDon at 6:22 PM 11-11-2005

[PanEuropean]

Hi Douglas:

You are really going to get a laugh from this. I was shopping in Migros here in Switzerland yesterday (Migros is the Swiss equivalent of Wal-Mart), and found the EXACT same fire extinguisher as the OEM Phaeton one on sale for CHF 39, which is about USD $30. So, that solves the extinguisher problem. Now all I have to do is figure out how to transport it back to Canada. A pressurized fire extinguisher is considered 'Dangerous Goods' by international airline regulations. I know I could ship it cargo, no problem, I just need to find out if the airline will accept it as either checked or carry-on baggage.

Michael

[copernicus0001]

When you get a chance, let me know the model number - I will see if I can get one from Kiddie in North America. That would make the remainder of the retrofit fairly straight forward - just the logistics of acquiring parts from Europe.

[PanEuropean]

I had a chance to look at the OEM extinguisher in more detail over the weekend - here are some pictures of it:

OEM Extinguisher

[PanEuropean]

OK boys and girls, it's time to get this forum re-focused on our main fun activity, which is refitting goodies to our Phaetons. I'm getting bored with all this yada-yada about VW of America no longer importing Phaetons. As far as I'm concerned, VW of America can do what they want, because we're still going to import stuff to retrofit. Right? Right! I knew you felt that way too.

Now, about the topic at hand, which is retrofitting a fire extinguisher, I thought it might be a good idea to get some wise advice from some folks who have experience in this matter, so, I went to Dresden, and asked to be allowed to observe how the fire extinguisher is installed in the first place. All the staff at Dresden - reception, managers, and the craftspeople who build the car - are always delighted to have owners visit, so, they gave me a white coat, and we headed off to watch a Phaeton being assembled. We were lucky, the first car we came to was scheduled to have a fire extinguisher installed in it. Here's the story in pictures.

Step One: Remove the front passenger seat and the front footwell carpet.
Hint: The job is easier if the front passenger seat and front footwell carpet has not yet been installed.
But, if your Phaeton has already been fully assembled for you by someone else, just visit the Keyless Start thread for seat and carpet removal instructions.

Obtain two each of the following parts from your local VW dealer

Install the bolt retaining sleeves (German: bn. mutter) in the holes that exist in the front seat support beam.

Turn the carpet upside down, and carefully cut a rectangular hole to accommodate the fire extinguisher holder.
Remember the sage advice of the retired carpenter: "Measure twice, and cut once."

Put the holder (shown above in an earlier post) in the hole, then re-install the carpet.

Install the two bolts in the appropriate holes, and, voila, you are done!
(Uh, except for the minor details involved in re-assembling everything else, that is.)

[PhaetonChix]

Michael,

Ship the extinguisher home with your other set of rims? Surely, as parts, it's easier to do?

BTW, I'm totally jealous that you get to wear a white coat and watch Phaetons (the other Bentley) being built. The only white coats I see these days ask me about my co-pays and deductibles.

~PC


Modified by PhaetonChix at 4:40 PM 11-19-2005

[PanEuropean]

Hi PC:

The problem with the fire extinguisher is that once the thing is pressurized, it becomes 'dangerous goods' so far as ICAO and IATA are concerned. It is difficult - though not impossible - to carry DGs as checked or carry on baggage on aircraft. Even tires and rims (when assembled) are considered DGs, although some argument could be made that if the valve was removed to ensure that there was never a pressure differential, they would no longer be DGs.

I have to be especially careful about this kind of stuff, because I am approved to teach courses to airline staff and crews about - you guessed it - proper handling of DGs. So, if I violate a rule, I will be really up the creek.

The most troublesome part of this fire extinguisher retrofit has been figuring out how to get the darn extinguisher to North America. The actual mechanical work is easy.

Michael

[PanEuropean]

Sometimes, the funniest things happen in the middle of these modifications. I was at my local VW dealer (here in Canada) yesterday, and the parts manager asked me what I was currently working on. I told him I had not made any progress on the fire extinguisher retrofit lately, because I haven't figured out a way to get the extinguisher back to Canada. He asked me what the part number was, and I gave it to him.

This morning, at about 10 AM, I got an email from my VW dealer - "Your fire extinguisher has arrived". I could not believe it, but sure enough, Blaine had found an extinguisher in North America, and he had it for me. I mean, the part number is not even listed in the ETKA parts catalog, but Blaine got me the part overnight just as easy as if it was an oil filter.

So, now I have everything I need to proceed - I plan to install this tomorrow.

I finally found the extinguisher - at my local VW dealer!

[PanEuropean]

I finally got this retrofit finished today. It was time-consuming and troublesome, certainly more effort than installing a start button.

Before you begin, make sure you have all the required supplies. In particular, make sure that you have the two bolts P/N N 908 085 01 and two nuts P/N N100 355 01. The nuts are not listed in the North American parts catalog. You can go ahead and install the fire extinguisher holder if you don’t have the extinguisher, but you can’t install it if you don’t have these two pieces of hardware.

Begin by removing the four bolts that attach the passenger seat to the floor of the Phaeton. The process is the same as that for removing the driver seat, this is well documented at the thread that describes how to refit a start button: Retrofitting Keyless Start to North American Phaetons. Note that the four bolts that hold the passenger seat in place cannot be re-used, you need to order (ahead of time) four new bolts to use when you re-install the seat. The part number for these bolts is N 909 650 02.

Seat Retaining Bolts – you will need 4

Once you have the passenger seat loose, you can carefully tilt it backwards to allow you to disconnect the electrical connections from the underside of the seat. You really need to have a helper here, because you first have to tilt the seat so that the front edge is about 4 inches above the floor, then disconnect a little clip that keeps the wiring harness out of harm’s way. Then you can tilt the seat back to the position shown in the photo below. The seat is heavy, and won’t stay in that position unless someone is in the back of the car holding it.

Seat tilted back, after releasing cable retaining clip

Once you have disconnected the electrical connections, you can push the whole seat assembly into the rear passenger footwell to get it out of the way. Don’t try to remove it from the car – it is too heavy to lift, and if you want to remove it from the car, you have to cut a plastic cover to enable you to disconnect the shoulder belt from the upper guide on the B pillar.

Wiring harness unplugged

Next you begin removing trim pieces that surround the front passenger carpet, to allow you to later remove the carpet. Pull the carpet away from the front of the passenger footwell – it is not attached with anything, you just grab it at the very top and pull it straight back. Then pull the carpet away from the front outboard area – behind the front right wheelwell – to get access to a single 10 mm plastic nut that holds the door sill trim in place. Remove this nut.

Remove this nut

Once that nut has been removed, you can lift the door sill trim piece away from the door sill aperture. It is held in place with spring clips. There are additional photos illustrating this process at the Retrofitting Keyless Start to North American Phaetons thread. Then remove a circular cap that covers the bolt shown in the illustration below, and remove this bolt. There is another similar bolt at the front end of this trim piece – you will see it if you look up at the forward inboard corner of the passenger footwell. Remove this second bolt, then remove this whole trim piece. Again, see the start button thread for illustrations showing how to take this trim piece off.

Preparing to remove the inboard trim piece

Once the two trim pieces have been removed (door sill, and upper inboard), remove the black bezel that surrounds the rear footwell air outlet. This pulls straight off. Then remove the carpet from the passenger footwell. To remove the carpet, fold the front parts backward, as you can see above, then lift the FRONT part of the carpet up, as if the carpet was hinged to the floor at the back edge. You kind of squeeze the front part up past the glove compartment. Once you have done this, you can carefully thread the electrical cable out through the hole in the carpet. Do not put any strain on the connectors when you are doing this.

Footwell after carpet has been removed

The challenge now is to cut a hole in the carpet to accept the fire extinguisher holder base. This is easier said than done. Rather than go through it step by step, I’ll just draw to your attention these thoughts:

a) Measure three times and then cut once – that carpet piece is darned expensive. I used a tire crayon to draw guidelines.

b) The outboard edge of the base needs to be against the outboard edge of the depression in the carpet. In other words, don’t try to center the thing, instead, gently push the black base until it touches the outboard edge of the carpet, and use that as your reference point.

c) The front to back length of the hole (measured in a straight line, from front to back) will be about 11 cm, as shown in the photos below.

d) After you remove the two floormat retaining posts, you will be left with two holes in the carpet – these work well as a guideline for making the forwardmost cut.

e) The multiple pins (forks) that stick out the front of the black plastic base go underneath the carpet, but the top edge (visible edge) of the base goes on top of the carpet.

It takes a while to cut the hole and fine-tune everything

I found that if I test-fitted the base of the fire extinguisher compartment into the passenger footwell after I took the carpet out, this gave me a pretty good idea of how the base would need to line up with the hole in the carpet that the seat retaining bolts go through. Note that the screwdriver is holding the base in the position it will be in once the two bolts are installed.

Test-fitting the base, to get an idea of left/right positioning

Once all that work is done, and the base is installed in the carpet, you just re-assemble everything. Have a look at the pictures that I took at the Transparent Factory in Dresden (above) for details showing how to insert the nuts in the floor of the Phaeton, and then insert the two bolts to hold the base in place.

When re-installing the carpet in the car, fit it in from the back first. In other words, first pull the electrical cable up the hole, then fit the aft edge of the carpet under the front edge of the rear footwell carpet, then pivot the whole carpet down from the back edge. This is really the only way to do it.

Part way through the re-assembly process

The two posts that were in the carpet liner for the purpose of retaining the removable floormats cannot be re-installed. Instead, order two beige colour retaining posts for a 2006 Jetta, and install these instead. The Jetta posts have a screw-in base, the OEM Phaeton ones were plastic-welded and cannot be repositioned. You can see from the photo below why a different, shorter passenger footwell floormat is required.

Lastly – if you have a gummi rubber winter floormat, you will need to cut a strip off the bottom to allow for the fire extinguisher. I cut the strip off so that the gummi mat was about 3 mm overlength, and I tucked the extra under the lip of the fire extinguisher base for a cleaner look.

Once you are all done, just hope and pray that you don’t need to use the extinguisher, because it is very difficult to get a replacement extinguisher from VW in North America.

Michael

[PanEuropean]

Photos re-hosted

[Kuwaity]

I have fire extinguisher in my Phaeton and it is the cleanest, most invisible fire extinguisher I have ever seen. Check on left side…. There is an empty place perhaps you can store something special.

[TXRanger83]

Can the OEM one be refilled or recharged?

[Itzmann]

Funny, this morning I was thinking about canceling the comprehensive portion of my insurance (the Ph is not worth as much these days as it once was), and buying an extinguisher just in case.

I like the mod, but it seems to involve quite a bit of work!

[faterikcartman]

Quote, originally posted by Itzmann »

Funny, this morning I was thinking about canceling the comprehensive portion of my insurance (the Ph is not worth as much these days as it once was)...

I don't owe a cent on any car I own and would love a discussion on this board about when it makes sense to cancel comprehensive and/or collision insurance.

[Auzivision]

I don’t owe a cent on any of my vehicles either, yet I still carry comprehensive. It’s really just a matter of risk versus costs. Many will have varying opinions.

I would suggest if you are really interested in a discussion on this topic to please start it on a separate thread.

Thanks,

[TXRanger83]

Quote, originally posted by TXRanger83 »

Can the OEM one be refilled or recharged?

bump for this question

[PanEuropean]

Yes, I believe so. But it is probably cheaper to buy a new one IN EUROPE. They cost about $50 in Europe. They are much more expensive here in North America because the fire extinguisher is considered 'hazardous material' for shipping.

Michael

[jkuisma]

It may also be worth noting the expert's advice about the size of the extinguisher: one kilogram is not enough for much else than putting out a cigarette. Certainly better than nothing but don't even dream about putting out a fire in the engine bay with it. I have had a 3 kilo extinguisher in my trunk for years. I know it is not big enough for a serious fire, either, and that it takes time to grab it from the trunk...

Jouko

[TXRanger83]

Quote, originally posted by PanEuropean »

Yes, I believe so. But it is probably cheaper to buy a new one IN EUROPE. They cost about $50 in Europe. They are much more expensive here in North America because the fire extinguisher is considered 'hazardous material' for shipping. Michael

yeah because the price i have is about 300 with shipping for the OEM one, but if you can buy the same thing there for so much cheaper, when I go this fall I might just pick it up then...i know reading some of your previous posts on here you talked about checking to see if you were gonna be able to carry this or check this item when you fly, were you able to get a final ruling on this?

[PanEuropean]

Such an item cannot be checked as baggage. It MAY be possible to bring it on board as hand baggage, but that depends very much on the policies of the air carrier. Best if you contacted the air carrier (in writing) well ahead of time and asked for a ruling.

Michael

[PanEuropean]

Photos re-hosted.

Michael