Ok, for most of you who weren't watching the news Long Island got hit with a severe thunderstorm early Wednesday morning and being the college student I am living at home for the summer I left my TSX in the road. But apparently my entire street was flooded with water all the way up to the door.

So here's the damage. My entire passenger side floor is SOAKED with water. Plus, my on-board computer tells me to check my exhaust emession so when i went to check my exhaust pipes it starts shooting out water (At a distance of aprox 4 ft. Quite impressive). So what do you all recommend?

The car sounds fine when I start it up except for the sound of water being shot out of the exhaust. I haven't driven it around the block for fear of it breaking down.

What advice can you guys give me?

 

well. for your interior i would suggest you to wet-vac the crap out of your carpets that are wet and then bring it to a detail shop shampoo and condition your carpets. This way your interior wont smell and start molding. So the key is to dry it as much as you can and deodorize them.

Good Luck.

 

There have been a couple of people on this board who have had the A/C drain line discharge into their car. If you search around you may find their threads and the suggestions of what to do with flooded interior. Also, you might want to search the Wash & Wax section for the same thing. Search for terms like "flood" or "flooded". I think they had to remove the carpet and dry out the material underneath it. It sounds like an expensive proposition, probably should consult your insurance paperwork to see if you're covered and if you are then let the insurance company handle it.

Mechanically speaking, I don't think any damage occured since you were able to start the engine. I don't know what the implications to the catalytic converter are if the water went through your exhaust and into the cat. The rest of the car should be OK once it dries out. How deep did the water get?

 

I agree - let your insurance company have first dibs at the resolutions.
Regards the exhaust - water probably got in the cat giving an MIL light when
you started it. Your dealer or mechanic should check with a scan tool to see
what the trouble code points to. It's probably the front or/and rear O2
sensors, and, if when dried out the sensors are not contaminated by ??? in the
flood water you should be good to go. Worst case the cat may have to be replaced too.

 

Cool thanks for the advice guys. In short, I ended up calling my Acura dealership and they proved to be of no help. But they did advise me to call my Insurance company. Which in turn I didn't end up doing.

My father said that the water did not raise high enough to flood all the way into the engine bay and it just stayed in the exhaust. Thus, if i drove the car around for a bit the water would evaporate and the check emission light would turn off. Sure enough it did, after about putting 35 miles on the car driving on the expressway, the light turned off and everything went back to normal.

As for the flooding in the car, I started wet-vac'in the interior and will leave the windows open and the mats out in the sun tomorrow.

My final question to you all would be do I need to worry about mold in the carpets at this point? and can anyone recommend a good air freshener?

 

It wasn't salt water was it?

 

Rain Water...possible sewage water as well.