help with freezing cold water damage

Hello... It might be the wrong list. but, going by the responses to an older question, i decided to try my luck. My sister drove my 1999 Camry into a slightly frozen ditch in Minneapolis. Then it was towed to our place. The front of the car was under water up until the front doors. The towing guys and the cop said it was junk. I am not aware of all the inside goings on of a car. I guess, the first step will be draining the water. In one of the other threads, i read a comment about autotansmission not working. I wanted to know if this car would be drivable again. The dealer will be taking a look tomorrow. thanks in advance... Sreekanth

how do you do that if it was by accident

You might have better luck in alt.autos.toyota - This message is being crossposted there for your convenience.

;-) TeGGeR, Gord, Phillip, a.a.toyota denizens: Be Nice & Behave. Or Else I'll sic Gunner from r.c.metalworking on ya, and when he's done there won't be much left... ;-)

Good. (Sorta.) ;-) You can let your sister help pay the difference between what the insurance will pay for the car, and what it will cost to replace the car with a comparable one - you always end up getting screwed a bit on the insurance payout, but it's still a whole lot better than losing it all.

It all depends on what on the car got submerged, and for how long. If it went in nose first and only submerged the engine compartment, the engine stopped before sucking in much water, and didn't get any large quantities of water into the passenger compartment, the car MIGHT be salvageable. If nothing else, it's a good body shell for parts and the interior.

First step is to get it stabilized - RIGHT NOW!! TODAY!! (Okay, after you finish reading this...) Do it before the water has time to cause any more damage.

Get the car into a heated garage where you have room to work on it, or into a closed garage and get some portable 'salamander' heaters running (carefully!) to raise the temperature and drive out the moisture. Have low and high ventilation grilles in the garage walls open so the moisture has a way out.

Get a good carpet cleaner wet vacuum and get all the water out of the carpet and seats. Then pull the seats and carpets out of the car so they can dry from the backside, along with any trim (door panels, kick panels) that got wet. Get fans circulating air inside the car (and have heaters running in the garage) to get the interior dried out. BEFORE it has a chance to start rusting or mildewing.

While the car is drying, you can start under the hood. Drain and change the motor oil, transmission, PS and all engine fluids, including changing the brake fluid and doing a full brake system bleeding - brake fluid sucks up water like a sponge, and quickly rusts the system from the inside.

Clean out and dry the distributor, starter, alternator, etc. and look for signs of trouble. Try testing the components separately off the car, so you can eliminate them as trouble points later. If it was underwater for a while (like the starter motor) toss it and get a fresh rebuild - paint "flood" on any cores you return so they don't try reusing them.

Pull the sparkplugs before you try turning the engine over. If it wasn't damaged by hydrolock before (ingesting water through the air intake while running), the starter has enough power to finish it off. If it squirts big gouts of water out the sparkplug holes when you turn it over, that is a bad sign. Do compression and cylinder leakdown tests to see if the bottom end is toast.

If the car has airbags, any components that were submerged are trash, including impact sensors and the system 'brain box'. If the EFI computer was submerged, it's probably toast too, along with any fancy electronics like cruise control units. And these items get Real Expensive, Real Fast, and will lead to the insurance company totaling out the car rather than pay to fix it up.

If the insurer decides the car is junk, you have to make a judgment call whether you want to buy it back from them and repair it yourself, or have the work done - Cars that were flooded are rarely the same afterwards, you'll be fighting annoying electronic gremlins for years.

This is one of the big reasons they push CARFAX, so you don't get stuck buying a damaged used car that will be nothing but trouble.

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I had a CJ-5 go nose down into a lake once. Yup, a right off 'they say'. Find out what the buy out is for the 'salvage'. You can drain all the fluids,flush out the rad,block,tranny,etc. Dry out the wiring( dis the dash go glug,glug,glug ?),bleach the heater,wiring,etc. Given a nice warm garage,lots of patience and a week or so, I don't see any real reason why it can't be back on the road.Mind you I haven't seen it, but have 'been there,done that'. hth j

thanks for all your responses...it was underwater for a couple of hours.

Hey, Bruce, and OP; we have been buying up waterdamaged cars since the great flod in PA a couple months ago, and have only had one hydraulic lock. Do what Bruce says; drain everything. Then refill and try to start it. Hopefully the engine quit (or your (sister?) shut it off when it got submerged. Then, if you *do* have a garage, let it dry, but also, if the passenger compartment got invaded, remove the seats (14mm socket) and the console, and pull the carpets, and dry them thouroughly. You can also take them to a professional detailer that has an 'extractor' and have them professionally cleaned and dried. As long as nothing got locked (by being filled with water) it should come out ok. Flood damage is about the easiest type of 'accident' to recover from. If not, we'll buy the car after your ins co. totals it, do all of the above, and sell it!

Bruce L. Bergman floridly penned in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Why wouldn't I be nice? >:-( And I'm wearing my amazing Wonder Woman bracelets that will deflect bullets, so there.

You've pretty much covered the gamut. The OP's car is a huge question mark just now, unfortunately.

Engines do not much like water, even freshwater. So long as the engine or transmission did not ingest water, the car will be fine (excepting unibody damage).