blkaspec

so saturday night i was on my way home from my ten year reunion...yeah! when i hit a very long and deep "puddle" going about 40mph. the road was very dark and twisty, and there was no one in front of me to give me a little warning of what was a head. the only lights i could see were some flashers but they were on the other side of the water. needless to say my car did not enjoy that adventure. right now it is sitting in a tow yard waiting to be shipped to the dealership. i will keep you all informed once i know more.

also, i havent had a chance to do the acurazine "hydrolock" search yet, my internet was down due to the storms, but if any of you have any thoughts or suggestions on what i can say or do to make this go as smooth as possible i would love to hear it. thanks in advance!!!

LoveMyTL-S

Wow! That bites. Sounds like another casualty from Ike. Hope it's not too bad. That musta been one VERY DEEP puddle. Good luck.

Brettg

What normaly happens is the engine sucks up water which can not be compressed, its like putting a brick in your cylinders, then forcing the engine to turn anyway, converting your engine into a rock crusher.

Most times the engine is trash, bent rods, bent crankshaft, total loss.

Unless you only drive on a race track, I think a cai is a very dumb thing to do.

Many cars have problems even without a cai, my sister had her car ruined when she was going through a puddle and a truck came through and swamped her.
Her air intake was low under and behind the headlight (ford taurus), and I checked her car out after they towed it, you could not turn the motor with a 4 foot breaker bar on the crankshaft with the spark plugs out.

Insurance gave her a REAL good price for the car though!

Brett


Brett

KN_TL

iTrader: (3)

Ouch. Even if it's under warranty, they're not going to cover it with the CAI. That's the chance we take for having one on.

I would start looking for a low mileage salvage and just do a swap.

Distorted Reality

Wow thats crazy, must of been a deep puddle. Hopefully you aren't totally screwed.

sixsixfour

damn that sucks. just one of the reasons I dont want to get a CAI.

blkaspec

regardless, could/would insurance cover any of this?

MichaelBenz

iTrader: (2)

Next time....soon as you see you have hit the point of no return and are going to be in it....TURN THE MOTOR OFF IMMEDIATELY as you are coasting. Sure...you prob wont make it to the end of puddle/water stream and end up pushing it out but you may save yourself a motor. You have to do it pretty much immediately though.

Will Y.

Make a claim- don't ask the carrier. It should fall under the comprehensive coverage, but check your policy language to make sure that you don't get any unexpected surprises.

And don't mention any aftermarket parts or CAI unless asked directly!

G/L.

blkaspec

what do you mean by "dont ask the carrier"? so dont actually talk with my insurance people, just make a claim online or something?

blkaspec

i know, but i think my brain was in shock as soon as i heard and felt what was going on. i have read about this situation and knew what i was getting in to by installing a CAI, but when it happened and the fact that it really took me by surprise i totally acted incorrectly.

MichaelBenz

iTrader: (2)

Correct. WTF....now your a car genious? I dont know what you are talking about? Yes...call your agent and make a claim due to water. Shit happens...thats what you got your insurance for.

What he is saying is dont ask...expect it. Make a claim as if you expect them to pay for it. If it comes up later about aftermarket parts....you got it that way...had no idea. See what I mean....you are no expert...just a consumer. They insured it the way it was originally and the way it is now....one in the same. Get it?

Will Y.

blkaspec

cool, thanks guys for the helpful info!!!! i have never had to go through something like this so all info is helpful.

blkaspec

so i just talked to the insurance and until i have proof that something is broken, i cant make a claim. so i guess i will just wait to hear from the dealership and see what they find.

geekybiker

I had to made a hydrolock claim on my corvette some years ago due to a very similar situation. It was covered under the comprehensive portion of my policy.

WRXtranceformed

That really sucks bro! Good luck on getting back on the road again. Keep us posted about what happens.

blkaspec

they just called and said no internal damage. they pulled the plugs and cleaned them off, they are doing the third oil flush because its still milky, but so far its looking much better than once expected, but i am not going to get too excited yet. they quoted me like $400, which is probably too high, but at this point i am just excited that i probably didnt blow it up.

let me know if anything sounds bad or wrong or stupid or anything else i should look out for, thanks!

jmkiang

iTrader: (5)

Sounds like some good news! Keep us posted.

This past weekends with all the flooding in IL, it took me forever to get anywhere because I kept having to turn around and find another route. Wasn't going to risk hydrolock to save 10 mins!

LoveMyTL-S

Sounds like you dodged a bullet....... Good to hear it. If you want to sell the CAI let me know.......

blkaspec

Yeah, hopefully i did!..but we will see if they find anything else. And i would love to sell you my CAI, but with all the water down there in FL i wouldnt want you to go through the same hassle as me

I think i will keep it on for now, the thought of reinstalling the stock setup makes me cringe. I will just drive slower during the night and maybe add a sonar to my ride to try and detect incoming road ponds

LoveMyTL-S

I hear ya.........yea, just need to be more careful. I had a CAI on my old TSX and had no issues, as I'm not in a flood zone. I do understand about putting all the stock items back. I help a local member do his CAI on his TL-S. Boy what a chore. Anyway, again good luck.......

KzooTL

Yeah crazy how we got Ivans aftermath even here in Michigan! I had a close one here in Kalamazoo, overflowing ponds and rivers closed streets... Of course they didn't have road closed barricades up till the next day.

At 40 MPH into a puddle i'm surprised you didn't have whiplash from the abrupt stop.

ifirahse

iTrader: (6)

I love LA.

blkaspec

well i got my car back and all seems to be pretty good....except i just realized my floor was pretty wet on the side where the tow guy opened the door to steer the car on to the truck. so i just got done sucking out what i could and now its set up in the garage with a bunch of fans. i also sprayed some lysol in order to kill as much germies as i could. i think it should be ok...

and KzooTL, i know what you mean about Kzoo. I lived there for eight years during college and there is a lot of water out there, pretty area though. I try to get out there as much as i can, still got some friends out that way.

I hate cars

Sounds like you got lucky. Do yourself a favor and do a compression check on all cylinders. If you bent a rod, it may not show up right away but you will always wonder why the car gets slightly worse mileage, fouls out one or two plugs, seems a little down on power. If you bent a rod, compression will be down on that cylinder. It will eventually destroy itself so it's better to find out now so you can baby it until you think of a solution.

For the future, there is no reason to ever have the air intake down low or in direct airflow. Manufacturers do this because this is what the consumer expects, not necessarily what works the best. All of your benefit from the CAI comes from getting the inlet outside of the engine bay. Where it is outside doesn't really matter.

blkaspec

thanks for the input and suggestions, they are greatly appreciated!

how would i go abouts the compression check? would i take it somewhere for this, can you do it yourself? i have heard of this but i am still new to working on my own car so i apologize for the dumb question.

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ok, i did some checking and it seems to be pretty involved, so it will probably be best to take it somewhere. i did read that there is the manual option or a electronic method, is one better for our engines?

I hate cars

I hope I didn't scare you. It's just that once you bend a rod, it will eventually break and cause the other problems mentioned, including rod bearing wear, cylinder wall/piston wear, etc. Your engine is probably fine but it's worth the time to check it out.

It's pretty easy and it's a good way to get familiar with your car. If you pay someone to do it, absolutely don't pay more than $100. The plugs are easy to get to and it would take a good mechanic less than 20 minutes to do the test. I'm not sure of your mileage but since the plugs have to be removed and put back in anyway, you could get a plug change free of labor.

blkaspec

Haha, no, not really scared, but i did pee my pants a little
But thank you, it will be something i keep my eye on and will have checked out soon. Right now my car has 42K miles on it which i put on since March of 2007, mostly freeway.

Right now it sounds and performs pretty well, i havent really pushed it much since i got her back. I did a little MPG check this morning and as of now it seems to check out. At around 74-77mph avg for around 30miles i was hovering around 29-31MPG, which is pretty on point for my car. But i will keep an eye on it for future changes.

Thanks everyone for your support!!! I think i really got lucky on this one

MWalsh9152

nevermind sonar....you need a depth finder

blkaspec

so it still "runs" good, but the morning startup is a little rougher than normal, and it seemed to idle a little harder too, but once its moving there is no noticeable issue. i am still worried about problems though, i hate not knowing for sure.

anyone have any rough estimates on possible problems and cost to repair?

blkaspec

so i finally took my car in to get a compression test and to get the plugs replaced, and they gave me the thumbs up. i dont have the readout in front of me but 5 of the 6 where between 190 and 205, and the 5th cylinder was like 185. he said it was all within spec so not to worry. it does seem to be running much better after the spark plug swap though. and the guy who runs the dealership's shop said he took my car out for a spin to make sure all was good and he said he thought he was driving in a Type-S because it handled so good but that makes me worried that he didnt really know about the aspec suspension upgrade after i mentioned me having it... either way, i am just glad that as of now my car is good to go. thanks again for all the help and suggestions!!!!

bmwproboi05

Hmmm wouldnt it be better to have a short ram instead of cai? If your in a area prone to floods?