Rear Plug in crew cab - crockpot started smoking!
 

So we had to go to in-laws for Easter today and the wife asked if we could plug the crockpot into rear outlet and keep it keep it on warm mode. About 10 mins into the drive I started to smell plastic. I thought it may have been the plastic tote I put it it. Within 5 mins it started smoking and I quickly unplugged it. We pulled over and I could not see anywhere that it was touching or melting anything. Very odd. We got to her parents and I plugged it in the wall and the dam thing started smoking again.

Is it possible the electrical outlet was putting out too much voltage and fried the crockpot? I mean we had it plugged in at home before we left and it was fine.

Very odd and scary at same time.

Too much voltage, no. Maybe too much current. ( Amps) Circuit in truck designed to charge your laptop not cook your supper. Don't mean for that to sound like it probably does. Crock pot has resistance element heating, controlled by resistors. Low, med, high. Most likely smoked one or more of these resistors in crock pot. Probably cheaper to just get wife new crock pot.

LOL we weren’t cooking rather keeping warm. And you are probably 100% right as I put on “warm mode” and I’m sure it blew something inside. Happy Easter!

Sounds like an amps/wire gauge/distance to point of use thing.

The in-truck inverter puts out a maximum (not continuous) 400 watts. I don't know how many watts your crockpot uses when set to it's "warm" setting.

Whatever it is, your truck's 120V outlet is not for cooking food. That might require kilowatts, not a few hundred watts. Think of your truck's 120V interter outlet as just enough to run three 100W lightbulbs. That's about it.

The crockpot itself was smoking.
Does this crockpot have electronic digital controls?

Only three scenarios i can think of.
1. Crockpots are hi wattage devices which likely exceeded the wattage output capability of the DC to AC inverter in the truck.
If that happens either a fuse blows or the inverter for a lack of a better term goes berserk, short circuits excessive AC ripple voltage to any electronic controls, etc.
Who knows what happens then.

2. If the crockpot has electronic digital controls, the low voltage DC digital electronics might of got fried from either an under voltage or more likely excessive hi voltage AC ripple from an overburdened inverter.

3. As coincidence might have it, the crockpot might of been on its last legs and was ready to go kapuut which is probably unlikely..

Get yourself if you don't already have one a digital multi meter and measure the AC voltage at that AC receptacle.
There's a 50/50 chance the inverter is fried.
If the AC voltage is still good, i'd suspect the smoking crockpot is toasted.

We've done this lots of times, in F150 and wife's Toyota. Always on warm so I don't pop a fuse. We have one electronic, one manual dial, both crockpots have worked no issues for a couple hours.

I think it was just time for yours to go.

If your crockpot was smoking, I wouldn't trust it in the house or in the truck, get a new one and plug it into the truck, see how it works.

Heat-generating devices draw a LOT of current(look at your wife's hair dryer when you have time. Some of 'em draw upwards of TWO THOUSAND watts!)
Not a good idea to plug 'em into power inverters (your truck's AC outlet)

1800w max in the US, the bulk of most residential interior spaces are wired 15A.

I'd say the most likely scenario here is that the crappy waveform fried the pot's electronics. Crock pots and slow cookers are only about about 250w, A pressure cooker would be closer to 1kw.