I was driving back home day before yesterday. We had a Tornado alert and it was raining pretty hard. I drove into one of the side roads to get home. There was water on the street, I mis-judged how much, and my car ploughed into 2 feet of water and the motor coughed and died. I had to push her out of the water and now she's at the dealer. There was also water, 2 inches deep, inside the car, that I removed with a coffee mug, but the carpet is still soaked. They haven't looked at her yet...but when I called the insurance agency they said that they total off some of the cars with water damage. The very thought of losing my precious baby makes me sick to the stomach.

Even if they fix her up do you guys think there'll be any permanent damage to her? The engine? The rest of her? How about mold damage inside. The cars been sitting outside for 2 days now. Hopefully the adjuster from the insurance company gets there today and then the body shop can get to work.

She only has 17K miles on her and she's a 2004 Mazda RX-8....Why did this have to happen to me???

 

good luck! wouldnt it be better if it was totaled so you can get a new 8 with no damage?

 

I couldn't afford a new one. I bought this one for 26000 after a trade-in...I owe the bank 18K and the insurance company would probably pay me 20-21K for it. I don't want to spend another 2K on this...

 

I couldn't afford a new one. I bought this one for 26000 after a trade-in...I owe the bank 18K and the insurance company would probably pay me 20-21K for it. I don't want to spend 3-4K on another downpayment...can't afford it.

 

och that too bad.....i don't think it'll be totaled....worest case is you need new carpets and a short block (well i guess worest case would be a long block)....that'll be less than the cars apraised value. but i guess it all depends on what they find.

good luck

 

You need to talk to your can ins. rep and demand that it be "totaled". What they will do is wright it off as a salvaged title and cut you a check for what you car was/is worth. Pay off your loan of go get a new one. Let them deal with the damages/salvaged titile stuff.

 

To misquote an Australian chap, - Mr."Crocodile" Dundee,

"That ain't a flood....THIS is a flood!"

S

(pic from an Aussie member)

 

That ain't no flood...thats a lake

 

I had something like this happen to me years ago. I was diverted off of one road to another because of flash flooding. The road I was diverted to was just a bad. My engine got swamped. The engine had to be rebuilt and the rest of the car dried out. THE CAR WAS NEVER THE SAME. Since that happened everything seemed to break on the car. If I was you I would get rid of it as fast as you can or try and have the insurance company write it off.

 

2" of water in the car - not so bad so long as it didn't get into the engine itself - you would have to:

- remove the entire interior and force-air dry the entire interior
- Change EVERY fluid in the car
- Dissassemble the intake and exhaust systems and blow them dry and then oil-fog them
- inject oil into the plug ports and then hand-crank the engine to lube it
- Check every major electrical component - engine computer, etc.

At that point, youre probably good to go - you'd be surprised how durable the car is.

That said, much more water than that, and you're cooked.

I lost a 1986 Acura Integra in a flood - water was up to the top of the dash stack in the interior. I called the insurance company and they said it was a total without even looking at it - they said have it towed to a dealer, they'd verify the damage there, and then boom, done.

That's what we did and we were back in biz with a new one a week later.

 

Do you think my auto insurance premiums will go up? If so, any idea by how much?