Tonight I was driving on the road and it was raining hard. Although the road I took had no water floods. So I was cruising about 30 miles an hour in a 45 miles area, and suddenly, the road had uneven surface and I badly got soak into the water, about 1/3 height of my 8... the moment I splashed into the water, I heard a weird water bubble sound and the car turned off. There was no time for me to get out of the water because it happened so fast. And then I tried to start the car to get out of this water, wouldn't turn on. I called the towing truck and now it is in Firestone... because it was the closest shop from my house and they open on Sunday from 8am. My headlights and emergency light do work. What could be damaged from the water soak? Would it have damaged the radiator? battery? (I doubt since headlights work), or engine? (I hope not). There wasn't any warning sign like "high water level" too, so I am going to go to legal service in my school to get my money back for the repair costs. Could any members suspect any possible damages? The water did not come inside the car, and I was under the soak about an hour in about 1/3 height of my 8 rain. Thanks.

 

Best case: Water got into the electrical and shorted fuses.
Slightly worse: Water got into the electrical and fried electronics
Worst case: engine block cracked when it ingested water while driving (See these threads: https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-parts-s...e-asap-196770/, https://www.rx8club.com/trouble-shoo...ed-8-a-222466/)

Whichever cause it is, you need to contact your insurance company. Flood damage is an insurable damage source, and this does indeed count.

I'm cringing inside, hoping you aren't another student with high insurance that has liability only to save on monthly costs....

 

I think I only have a liability... here's my insurance coverages

Liability
Bodily Injury
Property Damage
Medical payments
Emergency road service
Uninsured motor vehicle:
bodily injury
property damage
death indemnity
under insured motor vehicle
bodily injury

I only pay 50 bucks a month...

 

well then....

thats unfortunate.

 

you think i can claim the city because they did not put any warning signs?
they put the warning signs after i got towed!

 

If it was the fault of the city in some way you could attempt a claim but it is like trying to get blood from a stone. You could give it a try anyway.

I had shredded a tire on one of those mini manhole covers that says water on it in the middle of the street. The city would cover that for me but I got passed around about 4 different departments and the 4th one passed me back to the first one. Had a fill out long forms for each department only to have them tell me the area it happened it was not their responsibility. I eventually just gave up which is what they wanted I'm sure.

 

Also, if you sucked in some water into the intake, that will keep the engine from running. If you sucked a lot of water into the engine, search "hydrolock". Don't try to turn the engine over before drying out the intake and removing the spark plugs and cranking to let out water.

 

Not sure why people keep doing things like this!

Yeah, it sound like you only have liability - especially if you are only paying $50 a month. That's way too cheap for something more than liability.

Unless your car is really old, messed up and totally worthless, paying for comprehensive is always a very good idea.

In most insurance companies, comprehensive does cover flood damage, fire, theft, etc. (Please don't confuse comprehensive with collision coverage. That's a totally different thing.)

And it looks like you went through more water than what you are describing (pics can be deceiving). Although I never drive in the rain anyway, in some occasions during long highway trips it has rained on me unexpectedly, and I had to drive through your average highway "puddles" with no issues.

So I am thinking your car probable ingested a lot of more water than what you are describing.

 

if water got into ur engine. of course it will not be able to start.

u need to get check and see if water got in, open the airbox and see if it's completely soak, if it is, chances are yes water got in,

then u need to do the deflood process while injecting oil into the chamber. oh did I mention replace the air filter and dry everything ?

 

as HiFlite said, remove the plugs and crank the engine to get as much water out as possible. have them check for spark at the ignition cables as well, if it is sparking still then your engine controls should still be functioning and hopefully the water is just keeping the engine from turning over.

once it stops pushing water out of the engine just put the plugs in, crank it and cross your fingers.

i personally have never seen a rotary truly hydrolock, but enough water will prevent the ignition from firing the combustion gases and takes some work to get all the water out of the intake system. i would also take out the MAF and blow it off with compressed air and/or MAF cleaner.

with the side port engines it can take a while to dry out the internals so be patient and probably have them add a few ounces of 2 stroke oil to the chambers while the plugs are removed to aid compression and pushing everything out.

 

Thanks for the help.
If my engine got water in it, will Mazda replace the engine under their warranty? Will they say hell no since it's my fault?

 

no, they will give you the finger and send you on your way.

it is either your responsibility or your insurance, but it sounds like it's up to you. hopefully the engine survived and is just water logged. basically follow the starting troubleshooting steps and long winded deflooding procedure(plugs removed and possibly replaced then a lot of cranking).

 

No. Mazda's warranty is against defects. No manufacturer in their right mind would warranty against flood damage.

 

or rebuilder either.

easiest way to think about it would be if you drove your car into the ocean and towed it back to the dealer and expected a new car. ain't gonna happen, even if you still had bumper to bumper warranty.

 

firestone told me they cant touch it, so i sent it to mazda. they said the engine did cranked but did not turn over. do i have some hopes that my engine is not hydrolocked?

 

That really isn't enough information to go on, and slightly contradictory. If it's cranking, it's turning over. Do they mean that it turns over but does nto fire? or the starter tries, but doesn't get the engine to turn over?

If all they did was stick the key in and give it a try, then they are far from done. If the engine is actually stuck in place for some reason, the best way to confirm that is to stick a 19mm socket on a breaker bar and on the front pulley bolt and see if the engine moves. I did plenty of that over the weekend rotating the engine for pics of the rotors through the spark plug hole. If it won't move, then there are bigger issues. If the starter actually spins it, but it just doesn't fire, it could still be just about anything.

So we are still where we started...

 

Here is the update from mazda. Inside the intake and its frozen wow...

 

Well, it didn't freeze immediately, so it would have frozen at some later point. That looks like the air filter box? Wouldn't really be affecting much there. If you still had water in the engine and it froze in there, that might be a fairly big problem, depending on how much and if the expanding ice stressed/broke anything. If there is ice damage, it would have been caused AFTER the plunge into the water, and would have been avoidable.

 

That's a RB intake box.

Your insurance coverage doesn't really make sense to me. You don't have comp or collision but yet you have extras like medical payments, uninsured, underinsured, etc.

As for the engine, it's hard to say if it is ruined or not. It depends on a few things. I know a guy who flooded his 8 in bad storm and his insurance covered a new engine and headlights. The engine was ruined though.

 

I cant believe dealerships. Does anyone suspect hes lying to me?

 

He's doing exactly what any other Mazda dealership would do. Ask him to give you the compression test results. Also ask him if he tried to deflood it?

If it's just low compression and the car ran before you flooded it then it'll likely run now once its deflooded -- assuming the umpteen hundred other things that could be wrong aren't. Hell it may even run better once you run the **** out of it.

 

You are totally being taken to town and but away wet.

Lies lies lies

 

I am going to tow my car to one of my town's best auto shop I found... heard a lot of good reviews from my friends and also great reviews on Google place. Will see what the other shop is going to say...

 

I am fed up with Mazda... I won't even ask from them and will tow my car to other place! BTW, why would I ****ing need a new clutch, flywheel, and oil injector?

 

Make sure you DO get the compression test results from Mazda unless you are sure this other mechanic has the special tool required to do the test. Most places will not have this tool as it is rotary specific.

Make sure when you talk to this mechanic that he knows its a rotary engine beforehand and that he is comfortable diagnosing it. If he does not have a lot of experience with one you might just be his guinea pig.