Howdy all,
I've just had to drive through a 2 foot 'puddle' of water. I remembered to brake whilst driving to dry the brakes out but is there anything else I should check?
The car drove fine after the puddle by the way.
Sounds stupid but you know me!
Many thanks
A Wet Adam
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Adam
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Howdy all, I've just had to drive through a 2 foot 'puddle' .....
Footwells, door pockets and boot?!!
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Har de har har. I was thinking something more mechanical!
By the way - it was more like 1 foot - I like my dramatic flourishes.
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Adam
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Since the car is still currently working, I don't think you have anything to worry about.
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Thanks BB.
I just wanted to make sure that it was ok for a long drive I've got today.
Cheers again for putting my mind at rest.
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Adam
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I suppose there's a really slight chance of gettign damp in your spark plugs or something, but if so I'm sure you'd have noticed spluttering performance soon after the puddle.
A 2 foot puddle isn't going to do that anyway unless you both plough through it at speed, and are very unlucky.
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You were lucky - see the threads about engines being totally wrecked by sucking in water up stupidly placed air intakes.
Also vulnerable are ceramic catalytic converters, which can be cracked by sudden cooling.
As the car is working there is probably no harm done, but unexpected places could be full of water.
The potential for long term damage from more prolonged emersion, particularly in muddy water, is considerable. All mechanical components that run hot can suck in contaminated water if emersed and cooled, so if you wanted to get really worried you would be looking at stripping down and cleaning the gearbox, wheel hubs, clutch, alternator etc.
I think even one foot might be a bit of an exageration. I once drove a Morris 1100 through a ford and it started floating away in about 9" of water. By spinning the wheels and praying hard I just avoided floating off downstream. It stopped on the far bank - the distributor was full of water thrown up by the fan belt.
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I'll second Cliff's comments. Unless there really is no alternative, it is much better to avoid going through deep water.
Every so often, we would get in a car with varying degrees of damage caused by driving through deep water. The funny thing was, there was usually another dry route to get to the destination - in the workshop, there was little sympathy for the customer; although, of course the customer never found that out :-)
number_cruncher
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Adski
Guess you won't be washing the car this weekend.... :-)
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A Distaster? Surely not, unless it's very deep water.
Sorry, I know spelling jokes are distasteful, but couldn't resist
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"A Distaster? Surely not, unless it's very deep water."
What if I wanted to express my distaste at something. Wouldn't that be a dis-taste-er?
Thanks for everyone's comments - I've been in the car since my previous post and it's worked fine. I did get stuck in some grass which made a lovely brown addition to the entire side of the car so I guess I WILL be washing it!
Scary stuff about the engine but it's not missed a beat so I'm going to relax until it blows up.
Many thanks again,
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Adam
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Sorry to be alarmist Adam- the engine won't blow up now. What COULD have happened but fortunately didn't, was that water can be sucked into the inlet in massive quantities and effectively lock the engine.It would have happened, or not, at the time.
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did get stuck in some grass which made a lovely brown addition to the entire side of the car
Goodness me. First the car gets taken swimming, and now it's been playing rugby ...
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Cliff,
thanks for that. Loads of other cars did the same - I was just making sure that it would be alright. Thanks for putting my mind at ease (and thanks to everyone else).
NW, if you could have seen me - it was a picture - put it this way - this is my second shower of the day :-)
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Adam
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Not much heavy rain lately, was it ford or flooded road?
why risk it? 2ft doesn't sound a lot but thats half way up doors, a bit of a foolish thing to do adam.
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It was a Ford wasn't it Adam? You've had a rather out-of-focus day. Eve is leading you astray, clearly.
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Lol. Oh I had a great excuse. Nowhere to turn around or pull over. Not that good you may think. When there is a police car with blue lights on behind you you have to get moving!
He took it equally slow once I left it - but there were a lot oif police at the end of the road.
Yes - it was heavy rain. I was rounding the bend and the radio said "so and so lane is under 2 foot of water".
Great.
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Adam
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