Man who appeared on 'Pimp My Ride' claimed that a modification made to his car caused a fire years later

Published on Aug 11, 2025 at 2:22 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis

Last updated on Aug 11, 2025 at 1:26 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by Emma Matthews

A man who had his Toyota RAV4 modified by Pimp My Ride revealed that one of these mods gave him a headache years later.

And it was a huge headache, considering it caused a fire.

Not exactly a small thing.

And his story wasn’t a one-off.

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The problem with Justin’s car

A man called Justin Dearinger had his 1997 Toyota RAV4 pimped by MTV for season six of Pimp My Ride.

He revealed that even though they made it look like it only took a couple of weeks to pimp his ride, Justin was left without a car for five months.

They also added stuff they removed later.

After filming ended, the team actually removed some of the coolest parts of his car, like the ‘pop-up champagne’, because they were unsafe or illegal.

More importantly, Dearinger said he faced wiring issues that caused his car to catch on fire five years after the show.

He didn’t know exactly what caused the fire, but Dearinger blamed it on the shoddy wiring work, which sounds possible considering they also fitted candles and a chocolate fountain.

Would Pimp My Ride work today?

Dearinger’s story wasn’t a one-off, as several guests on the show shared very similar stories.

Pimp My Ride is a classic, but it would probably be tricky to air it today.

For starters, people are now generally more aware of the fact that most reality shows aren’t real at all, and are mostly staged.

Secondly, Pimp My Ride became a hit show when the internet was a newborn baby, which means there was less scrutiny, and the worst you could get was a random post on a niche forum from very early internet adopters.

Today, the production team would likely have to deal with thousands of messages across social media every day calling this or that ‘fake’.

As we all know, commenters on the internet can be like that.

More importantly, Pimp My Ride heavily banked on a type of aesthetic that most car fans agree might not work anymore.

Then again, tuning companies are still obviously capable of creating wild rides, like West Coast Customs, the company that helped MTV with Pimp My Ride mods, is definitely still in business, and Xzibit is still a star.

So who knows, maybe we shouldn’t rule out a reboot.

user

Experienced content creator with a strong focus on cars and watches. Alessandro penned the first-ever post on the Supercar Blondie website and covers cars, watches, yachts, real estate and crypto. Former DriveTribe writer, fixed gear bike owner, obsessed with ducks for some reason.