After Katrina the South was Deluged with water Damaged Cars. I remember Seeing Photos of Ins.Lots the size of 10 football fields That wouldn't hold another car and years Later they were still Concerns about buying a used car that still had Good Titles but the Electrics and Interior's were "Questionable" Are we in for a parts Bonanza or Scam City ? I saw a couple "Floaters" I would R&R but New stuff with Their Computers may not Fare so well.
I'll gladly take a cheap ND.
So maybe this is the opposite question - how do I look for flood ruined cars to buy?
Robbie wrote: how do I look for flood ruined cars to buy?
Wait till it stops raining and drive South. next question?
To the insurance guys here is a question...
What does it take to total a car out for flood?
Lets assume a relatively new car of less than 4 yrs w/ a $20k value. Lets assume "fresh" rain water but in the case like Houston this is really a lot of muddy "sewer water" too. I would expect a lot of dirt/muddy left behind once the car "dries"
Is it flooded when the carpets are wet?
Is it flooded when the seats are wet?
or, does this vary dramatically from car to car?
Related topic...
If you are in the market for a flood car, no need to wait. Next week in Cleveland the insurance auction has this "flood car" available.
IMHO, this will be a source for more modern Challenge cars for years to come.
Or at least some new bones for race cars.
What I saw was Lots of cars Having the Seats and carpets pulled And Shampooed, they clean up just fine but the Electrics take some time to Dry Out and then they become corroded,and of course the Fluids get Changed. So if they/ Ins.Co./ is willing to Resell them How do we Know?
In reply to Robbie:
Copart and IAAI.
But be prepared for plenty of fees!
FuzzWuzzy wrote: In reply to Robbie: Copart and IAAI. But be prepared for plenty of fees!
Actually, are these publicly traded companies because it would seem they make millions off their low overhead of dirt lots with a couple of huge fork lifts.
To "properly" recover a submerged vehicle you need to get after it as soon as it's removed from the water. I've done it with a bunch of trucks, ATVs and Snowmobiles that were submerged in Lake George when I lived in Upstate NY. I don't know that I'd even consider something that was submerged in salt water. Thinking about it, I'm not sure that attempting to recover a vehicle from an actual flood is something I'd want to tackle either. When a city floods all kinds of nasty things end up in the water (think everything thing in the sewage system combined with everything else that's underwater).
Pretty much every flood car that's covered by insurance will be totaled and be branded with a salvage title. The ones that are harder to spot are cars that didn't have insurance. Other than integrity, there's nothing to stop an owner from selling one of those cars as if nothing had ever happened to it.
We had a car in the fleet for a while that was flooded in Dallas in the late 90's. Three days in an underwater parking garage.
For the rest of its life, it had little weird electrical problems. We'd chase one down and another would pop up a bit later. And that was a simple 1.6 Miata. Knowing what I know about the complexity electrical system in the ND by comparison, I'd run far, far away from one of those that had played submarine.
the last summer I was at the Acura dealer one of the local car lots bought a flooded RDX. It was a year old, had 8k miles on it and they thought they got a helluva deal when they snagged it for $11k. They replaced the carpets, lower seat assemblies (all electric, foam and leather), every wiring harness, both BCM's, both main fuse boxes, the instrument cluster and half the sensors in the engine...... and it still wouldn't start.
Last I saw that trucklet it had been towed to the back lot, they owed us $13k in parts and it was still undrivable. No way in hell I'd buy a modern car that was flooded.
Keith Tanner wrote: We had a car in the fleet for a while that was flooded in Dallas in the late 90's. Three days in an underwater parking garage. For the rest of its life, it had little weird electrical problems. We'd chase one down and another would pop up a bit later. And that was a simple 1.6 Miata. Knowing what I know about the complexity electrical system in the ND by comparison, I'd run far, far away from one of those that had played submarine.
This. Years ago I bought an '85 MR2 that had flood damage, although nothing as severe as what will come out of Houston. For the rest of the time I owned it strange electrical problems would crop up and side line it. Later on, rust started forming in strange places and of course every nut and bolt would cause an issue.
Another flood car for me...um...no.
John Welsh wrote: Related topic... If you are in the market for a flood car, no need to wait. Next week in Cleveland the insurance auction has this "flood car" available. Claimed to have an Actual Cash Value of $217,000
Hmmm, maybe my next part-out after the mr2 spyder? seems like a lot of potential there. ;-)
dculberson wrote:John Welsh wrote: Related topic... If you are in the market for a flood car, no need to wait. Next week in Cleveland the insurance auction has this "flood car" available. Claimed to have an Actual Cash Value of $217,000Hmmm, maybe my next part-out after the mr2 spyder? seems like a lot of potential there. ;-)
This one has been at the same place for months now. It never hits the hidden reserve price.
Buy-it-now price of $66k Stated cash value of $365k. That leaves you with 300k to put it back together...ha.
Only 793 miles on the clock.
John Welsh wrote:FuzzWuzzy wrote: In reply to Robbie: Copart and IAAI. But be prepared for plenty of fees!Actually, are these publicly traded companies because it would seem they make millions off their low overhead of dirt lots with a couple of huge fork lifts.
Copart is CPRT and is currently sitting at $32.
IAAI is under KAR (Kar Auction Services) and that's at $45.15.
Back when I was handling auto damage claim stuff including floods, if the water made it up to the dash then we wanted nothing to do with repairing it. If just the carpet, that isn't too bad to fix.
In reply to Sonic:
Even that depends on the cars now. Most of the Acura's the PCM is in the passenger footwell, the SRS unit is on the trans tunnel, BCM's are on the driver's kick panel etc.... most of the expensive stuff is at floor level.
I wouldn't be too worried about that stuff if the car was cheap enough. Motor swap, race car treatment, etc, would all be viable options at that point.
for 5k, I'm not interested. But Sub 1 or 2k? I'd be thinking hard.
From the Baton Rouge floods, any car that was claimed as flooded was mandated to be totaled, and only able to be sold with a certificate of destruction. Might be different in TX though.
I saw a picture of a flooded parking lot. I spotted a roof and hood that caught my attention. After a few seconds of staring i realized it was either a c6 or c7 corvette. It made me sad.
Pete Gossett wrote: From the Baton Rouge floods, any car that was claimed as flooded was mandated to be totaled, and only able to be sold with a certificate of destruction. Might be different in TX though.
TX isn't really fond of laws and regulations, so I wouldn't expect much for consumer protection on this.
John Welsh wrote: This one has been at the same place for months now. It never hits the hidden reserve price. Buy-it-now price of $66k Stated cash value of $365k. That leaves you with 300k to put it back together...ha. Only 793 miles on the clock.
Yikes! Might have a little trouble finding parts worth selling on that one.
John Welsh wrote: To the insurance guys here is a question... What does it take to total a car out for flood? Lets assume a relatively new car of less than 4 yrs w/ a $20k value. Lets assume "fresh" rain water but in the case like Houston this is really a lot of muddy "sewer water" too. I would expect a lot of dirt/muddy left behind once the car "dries" Is it flooded when the carpets are wet? Is it flooded when the seats are wet? or, does this vary dramatically from car to car?
Years ago, as Sonic said, the dash was sort of the cut off line. But now, with newer cars, we won't fool with anything that's had a decent amount of standing water in it. What "decent amount" means is a bit of a grey area, but you know it when you see it. If you leave the window open and it rains like a normal rainy day, probably not a big deal. But if there is 8" of standing water all in the floor, I won't touch it. It's possible the car is 100% fine, but it's also possible that it's not and I simply don't want to live with that car forever.
I'm on "standby" to help out with Harvey. My company doesn't write in Texas, but our sister company does. It's going to be a disaster, probably a lot like Sandy. The market will be flooded...pardon the pun...with these cars. They'll wind up at Copart or IAA for the most part, and what happens to them from there will be up to whomever buys them. Prices will go down for sure, given how many will go through all at once.
what % of cars in any given major city have full coverage?
I think there's two sides of this, there's all the newer cars that have insurance, and those may get totalled and then a % of those may get flipped/scrubbed after auctions, but I'd guess most of those get processed as they're supposed to.
The other side is all of those cars that have been on the road, or in driveways, or in garages, or backyards, etc. with PLPD or no insurance at all. Nobody who doesn't have full coverage is going to make a claim on those cars, and if they can be cleaned up and sold, there's not much to say it ever happened. Buyer beware I guess.
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