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Water damaged vehicles...

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Nunyas

Nunyas

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In my browsing, I just found a 2006 Lotus Elise that was flooded with fresh water. I imagine the damage from a fresh water flood isn't quite as bad as a salt water flood, and given that it was fresh water, I can't imagine the chassis and body being damaged too badly, especially since the chassis on an Elise is aluminum, and the body is fiberglass.

I'm not in a position to purchase the car I found, but I'd like some information for future reference concerning these types of conditions...
 
Flood damage to a vehicle can range from minor to quite severe. Depending on how long the car was submerged and how long it sat unattended after it got rescued from submersion.

#1 Most of the electrical parts, can be severly damaged due to the shorting condition the water achieves. The guages are most likely going to be damaged. The gas tank will most likely be contaminated with water and rust. The interior is deffinately going to be horrible.
#2 Mechanical, depending on how long the car sat after rescue from a watery grave without attention to the mechanical will be the issue. If immediately drained of ALL fluids { oil, gasoline, antifreeze, Brake, Trans and Differential fluids. Then dried out with heat or compressed air and replaced and engine started and car driven or operated until it reaches Op temps. Then chances are the mechanical will be ok. If the car has sat for any legnth of time without attention the mechanical is going to be questionable at best. The engine could be siezed beyond EVER getting it free. Given enough time even fresh water will corrode Aluminum beyone belief due to the "Mineral" content of the water. I have rescued several water logged engines very few are A Ok most are Junk!
 
good info to know! Sounds like a lot of work. Sounds like a complete chassis up rebuild if it sat around for any amount of time. I may avoid these until I reach such a time that I have lots of time and money sitting around waiting for me to burn.
 
Another consideration is that in a flood garages, industrial sites, sewage treatment plants, etc. may have been submerged making the "freshness" of the water dubious at best.
 
Flood water, no matter how "fresh" carries silt that settles as soon as the water is still. It creates dust and smell that's difficult to remove and may be forever inaccessible.
 
The only car to consider buying post-flood is a pre-computer car (approx. 1980, depending on model). Anything newer and the potential damage to electronics quickly exceeds the value of the finished car. A friend that went down this road found out that his 15-year old Dodge had 3 computers, 1 of which is located under the seat. Your options are to take the processors to someone who can bench-test them to see which one(s) are bad (expensive), or you can replace them 1 at a time until you find the bad one (more expensive). After spending more than the value of the car trying to fix it, he gave up and scrapped it. By the way, the vendors won't accept returns on computers. I've also been told that even if a flood car appears to run fine, there can be hidden damage that can appear without warning in the future.
 
SPEED-TV Motorweek has a flood car avoidance report on right now as I type, with some good tips for identifying a flood car. Advice is to stay away no matter what. The only good use for a flood car is to give the students at the high school tech cenetr something to learn on.
 
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