Last night, I had to help my mate recover his '05 Mondeo DCi 160 ST from a flooded road.
Anyway, before driving through the rather large 'puddle' he witnessed other cars of varying makes safely negotiate said flood with no problems. The water level was below wheel hub on his 17" wheels.
He didn't race through it and followed the usual advice of not changing gear half way through and keep to a speed in low gear that generates a small bow wave. Guess what happened?
The last car he saw go through must have dropped its undertray as it was bits of the previous car that we pulled out from the mangled and folded back remains of his car's undertray. Even though it was at a safe speed, the debris (hidden under the water) got caught under his car ripping off the tray and causing a large amount of water to be deflected upwards into the intake.
Car stopped dead, so he tried to restart - with result that starter motor stripped its teeth trying to turn over an engine that was hydraulically locked due to water ingestion!
The air filter was soaking with large amounts of water floating around the intercooler, turbo and cylinders.
(The annoying thing is the road floods since the local council put in full road width speed humps that now act as very effective dams. A great design.)
Luckily for him his insurance will cover the repairs but the new mondeo and most other modern cars have very low air intakes so beware of standing water and if in doubt don't go through!
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I did this a while ago in a diesel Rover. For some reason diesl cars seem to have very low air intakes but petrol cars intakes are higher SFAIK. Why should this be? He is very lucky that his inurance covers this sort of damage IMHO. They wouldn't pay if his engine was wrecked by lack of oil or coolant would they?
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My mate did this once in a Polo only he went through at 60mph. My Dad managed to get it going again by drying the HT leads or something which were soaked.
The same mate did it again, on the same road, in the same car, one week later.
We didn't go out to help him that time.
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Damp HT leads are a little different to water ingrese in the bores!! :-) mind you, 60mph is a stupid speed through a flood of unknown depth too...
Both manager in my department had new engines in their company cars after flood issues. One went through a flood while a 4x4 came blasting through the other way, outcome?.. One new engine in his BMW 328i coupe. 2nd manager also had similar problem in a small flood?.. Outcome, new engine in his 2 month old BMW 525i?? Seems these BMW's have a low intake too!!!
I ran a privately owned Mondeo TDCi for 18months and 52,000 miles, often using flood ridden country lanes on my commute, and never had an issue? luckily by the sound of it.
--
Neil T
E90 BMW 320d M Sport, E91 330d SE Touring
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I worked for a major motor manufacturer and these engine failures were always caused by "driving thro' a half-inch of water at 1/2 mph."
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This is an example of what happens "due to water ingress"
See Ebay item number 4651148450
2 bent conrods, engine only done 9367 miles, replaced by Insurance.
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Aren't the air intakes low down to pick up cooler air?
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