I recently came across a UL about a fellow whose new $30,000 Jeep Wrangler® wound up at the bottom of a lake through a series of drunken comic misadventures.
The poor shmuck’s insurance wouldn’t pay for the loss, so he’s stuck with the $650 monthly payments for a vehicle at the bottom of Lake Whatever.
Of course, being a UL this story is not true, but it begs the question: assuming the vehicle can be towed out of the lake, is it ruined forever? I’m thinking that a competent mechanic can disassemble the necessary parts of the vehicle and remove all the water from where it shouldn’t be. Doubtless it would be a time-consuming and expensive process, but can it be done?
The engine can be tottaly restored. I once had an outboard motor of a boat get submerged. I displaced all the water that seeped into the cylinders along with other minor replacements, it was able to run another day.
I spoke to a car dealer specializing in “low-price” vehicles one time. When we discussed flood damaged vehicles, he remarked that a salt water flooding is much more expensive to repair than a fresh water flooding.
I once had a brand new car roll into the chuck (salt water). Although reluctant at first, my insurance provider wrote off the vehicle and got me a new one.
Waterlogged cars can be saved but they are subject to all kinds of problems later on given the way cars are built and all the places water can get into and be near impossible to get out of.
This is a common problem for people living around lakes and rivers that overflow. Getting the smell out of waterlogged and mildewed nooks and crannies is also another challenge.
Back in the days of old when the entire electronics on board a car was the radio, a flood car could be restored without too much trouble.
disassemble the engine, clean and reassemble. ditto for Trans and rear axle.
Cleaning the interior would be a long process, but not impossible.
Compare that to now a days, multiple computers on board and more electronics than you can shake a stick at. Computers don’t like mud and water.
One word of warning
If you should ever have to deal with a modern car that has been submerged, do not replace the battery and reach into the car to turn on the key. (think about where your head would be when you are reaching through the window to turn on the key) Air bag systems can deploy after the crash sensor has been full of water, and power is restored (key on). At least one car maker has written warning to their technicians to this effect.
The upholstery is likely ruined, the rest of it can be saved. In the old days, Jeeps didn’t have a whole lot of upholstery, if you were intent on dunking a vehicle a Jeep was a pretty good choice.
By the by, you cannot legally abandon a vehicle just because it’s at the bottom of a lake–it will leak oil and pollute the lake for the next three months. The EPA (and any other agencies with jurisdiction) has to review the case and agree that the car is unremoveable, else, you are liable to get it out. I know that the IL dept. of conservation department (for example) will give you so many business days (usually five) and then fine you $100 or whatever per day that it remains.
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If you are ever looking for a used car, make sure it doesn’t smell musty, because that often means that the car was submerged and was fixed up. Cars that have been submerged can be fixed, but it’s just about impossible to get that musty smell out of them, and in the long term you’ll have lots of electrical problems with the car due to wires corroding. It was a bad enough problem in older cars, but with newer all electronically controlled cars it’s really going to be a problem.
Some people say you end up growing mold and things inside the car in places you can’t get rid of, and that the car will make you sick a lot more afterwards, but I don’t know how true that is. I’ve heard the guys at cartalk recommend things like spraying lysol and other cleaners into the air intakes to try and get rid of mold.
Never knew about the airbag thing. Thanks for the info Rick.
Older, not-electronic-everything cars: As long as the engine doesn’t suck in any water, it should be salvageable. Water, being less compressible than the standard air/fuel mixture, can break stuff if it gets inside the cylinders of a running engine (needless to say, it won’t run very long that way).
Funny anectdote:
A guy I work with did just that—got his Jeep in a little too deep in a river while playing offroad, and it died. Took two days for him to get together enough 4wd trucks and tractors to pull it out (it was stuck). When he finally got it out, he pulled the spark plugs and shot the cylinders full of WD-40, changed all the fluids several times, and did everything else he could to dry it out. He turned the key…and it ran perfectly. For a week. He still has the Jeep, but it’s on its second engine (and he’s got bigger tires, higher springs, etc. to keep it from happening again ).
There are too many such submerged and “restored” cars on the used-car market; you’ll see a lot of remarkable low-milage fairly new cars coming out of the midwest in the months following a big flood. Caveat emptor!!!
Gunslingers anecdote reminds me that just yesterday I heard similar advice for restarting an engine in a car which had been sitting inactive (in storage) for some years. The individual had inhereted an estate which included a Chrysler that’d been left sitting in a garage. The advice was to remove the plugs and add oil to the cylinders, then crank it to try to lube everything up. Yo could then pout back the plugs and then run it enough to burn out the oil.
I also immediately thought of the scene in Risky Business where Tom Cruise brought his dad’s Porsche into the shop after letting it roll into a lake. The service manager’s line was “So who’s the U-boat captian?”
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