Headlight Switch problems of the 2000 Honda Civic

During the day the inside of my car had a burning plastic smell. Later that night, my headlight low beams would not work. I had to drive home with the passing beams wedged on. Today I took the headlight/turn signal switch off of the steering column. The assembly had started to melt and the harness connector that was attached to it is singed! apparently I am not the first to have this problem in a Honda vehicle. Please let me know what can be done.

The contact owns a 2000 Honda Civic. The contact stated that the low beam headlights were malfunctioning. The vehicle was taken to a local mechanic who advised that the switch and coupler were defective as a result of heat damage and needed to be replaced. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure who did not offer any assistance since the vehicle was not included in any recalls. The vehicle was not repaired. The failure and the current mileage was 165,000.

While driving the car on the evening of Feb 11, 2005, we (wife and I) smelled a burning smell, we thought it was coming from outside the vehicle,so we started closing the sunroof and windows when I noticed smoke coming from the steering column. I looked in the hole where the stick for the headlights/turn signal was and saw flames. We quickly pulled into a convienence store and while I tried blowing it out (I had nothing else available to do and it was still small enough I thought it was possible), my wife ran in and got a fire extinguisher which put out the fire. We had the car towed home where I dismantled the steering column and dash. The headlight assembly had burned and melted. I've already cleaned out the extinguisher residue and replaced the part but the original part is still available if needed. Honda wanted me to bring them the car at my expense (it wasn't drivable) and wanted my insurance to pay for a rental/repairs, which I thought was really poor handling of the situation expecially since there were flames involved. This car was also completely unmodified and even has the original radio still installed.