rev up your engines
today in large part due to the flooding we had in Houston this week I'm gonna
talk about flooded cars now of course the first thing I'll say about flooded
cars is try not to get your car flooded in the first place modern cars are
pretty close to the ground then of that much clearance you never want to drive
in water that's more than say halfway up your tire at max water although it is
somewhat compressible it's not much you get air and gas sprayed into your engine
to run the engine they can compress a whole bunch the water only a tiny bit
then it stays solid so what happens is well the Pistons are going up if there's
water sucked in there it's got nowhere to go so it's still spinning the engine
the crankshaft will hold on to the piston rod rod will Bend the Energy's
got to go somewhere and the weakest thing is the piston rod the head and the
block are pretty strong but the piston rod is the thinnest part so as it's
being pushed it'll just Bend and once it's bend
good-by engine its called Hydro locking and the air intakes on modern cars are
pretty low more efficient for better gas mileage but here's your filter but they
ever sucked down way under here so you drive a water and it sucks that water
into the engine realize that even if you only halfway up the tire there people
drive by with a truck waves come up the waves get high the waves get sucked into
your engine goodbye engine so Park on high ground if there's a storm coming a
big parking ramp up in the air drive up Park it there go have a drink eat
something in a restaurant don't think oh I gotta make it through and I'm gonna
forward through the water because you'll end up like people on I45 here
in houston they drove and then when I got to the underpass the water was
coming up so they stopped well guess what there's hundreds or thousands of
cars behind them they're stuck there sitting in their car there's the water
the water keeps rising rising ventually covers their cars and all the cars
behind them you don't want to get stuck in a situation
like that in the first place but if you do here's some tips if you've driven
through water or say your car was parked and you think it might have gone in
water the first thing you want to do is take off the air filter cover check the
air filter check the filter see if it's dry like this one or soaking wet if it's
soaking wet water got in there don't even try to start the car either towed
to a mechanic or take out the spark plugs you pull them all on to their
holes so then there's no pressure to be built
up when you crank the engine so now if there's any water the engine will just
suck it in and spit it out the spark plug tube holes and you put the spark plugs
in after the water is gone
well plenty of water came out and also check your engine oil if you see that
it's milky or it's way over full that means water got in the engine and it
floats the oil floats on top of the water you'll see the oil level is too
high you don't want to start a car cause if that water gets in the engine and
starts being pumped through it can ruin stuff but if it just got in and you
haven't started it you can drain it all out before it does any damage and if you
do have an automatic transmission like this matrix where you can actually check
the fluid check the transmission fluid to because water destroys automatic
transmissions you do not want water an automated transmission and if some got
in and it wasn't run you drain it it's fine but once you start it and it pumps
that water mix of water and transmission fluid it gets in a transmission and
ruins things really fast now if you've got a nice car it's best to have full
coverage because insurance companies if your car is in a flood and the water
gets up to the dash they're gonna total that car and you'll get you money out of
it but any modern car once it gets that kind of water and if you don't have
insurance playing with the devil trying to get that thing running because all the
electronics in them if they aren't ruined now they can be soon or even a
year to completely ruin there's an example of one of my customers he had a
Volkswagens yeah I can't stand them anyways but he towed it over here and
it's not running so I start checking things it's all kinds of problems and
I'm working on he comes by after a couple hours I'm swearing at the thing he says
what you swearing about I said your stupid car I fix one thing and then
another thing is still wrong it's driving me nuts
so what does he say to me he says oh scotty didn't I tell ya a year and a half
ago I had it parked on the street and water came in through the windows on the
side that's how deep it got and I said why didn't you tell me this in the first
place I would have told you to junk the car
then because it took a year and a half but then all the electronics started to
fry corrosion got on once corrosion starts here it just keeps going and
going and going not took a year and a half but it was towed to the junkyard
after that you're not looking at a long term car if the water gets up to the dash
that's why they told them with insurance companies say it isn't you're car that
flooded out but you're looking at buying a used car and you're worried
that it might have been flooded in the past here's how you can check a bunch of
stuff first just go in the car and if it smells like mold bacteria just walk just
leave don't buy it look under the dash should be reasonably clean under there
and not covered with rust if all these nuts and bolts are rusted under there
hey water got in at some period of time they'll turn the key on make sure the
check engine light comes on like this with the key on in the car not running
that light should be on the car gets flooded out a trick of a lot of
mechanics is they'll take the dash out dry with a hairdryer if the check engine
light stays on if it's got a bulb they'll take the bulb out or they'll
short it out with 120 volts since it's a 12 volt bulb it'll pop or if it's LED
look at an ice pick and they'll snap the LED so that light doesn't come on if the
light doesn't come home and you turn it on there's really suspicious stuff then
you don't buy the car of course you want to hook up a scan tool anyways or have a
mechanic do it to check it out but you turn it on that light doesn't come on
just walk away you don't even think about buying it there's too many
possibilities that it was in a flood and has serious electrical problems and of
course there's they'll check the trunk for water lift up all the crap that's in
here in this case we got an unlock at first look inside now this one is nice
and dark and clear and will look even further
we'll look inside here take all the stuff out of the way
see if there's any water or rust stuck anywhere the carpets look under
inside see if there's mold see if you smell anything and here's a really good
trick to make it comfortable there's Jute under here you can feel it
it's just like the underlayment your carpet in your house if you push or pull
it up and you don't even see any Jute it's all gone and don't buy the car
because when cars get flooded out they're gonna stink you got to pull all
the seats out take all the rugs which usually rug assemblies out and then the
jute that's under it is polluted with the dirty water you take that you throw
it away now you're supposed to buy new jute and put it all back together when
it's cleaned and dried but many guys are lazy so when they put it back together
they don't put the Jute in now so it won't be as cushy when you step on it that's
no big deal in itself but if there's nothing there it was built with it
they're the only reason someone would take all that stuff out was cuz it
flooded out and got ruined and if they didn't put it back in don't buy it odds
are that car's been flooded and be very leery when you're buying a used car from
somebody you don't know there's lots of disreputable people I know a guy years ago
he went from Texas to Jersey bought a bunch of Hurricane sandy cars cheap
brought them to Houston he had his son put them up on the lift
they were draining the transmissions and engines I watched the water come out
they had five or six dash units on their workbench
he was drying them with a hairdryer and I even said you know what the
liabilities are for you selling a flooded car like somebody if they're big
doesn't work and they get killed you're gonna be responsible hey and the son
just responded to me ah none of it's in our name we sell them through third
parties make sure that the person who's selling you the car is the one who's got
the name on the title because if it's a third party seller a lot of those are
flooded or wrecked cars had one customer he called me up he was gonna by using
Mercedes and he was meeting the guy in a Sears parking lot and I said to him are
you serious that you're gonna get $15,000 cash to some clown in a Sears
parking lot and then he said yes Scotty what was I thinking sometimes people
don't think you gotta think when you're buying two used cars and now you know a
little bit about flooded cars how to avoid it in the first
place and how to definitely avoid buying a used flooded car, so if you never want
to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell