With the hurricanes and flooding that has
hit in the south recently there are hundreds of thousands of
vehicles that have moderate to severe flood damage.
Some of these vehicles that have not been completely submerged
will be cleaned up, freshner sprayed into carpets and vents and
shipped North, East and West.
The people who deal in these vehicles get them dirt cheap and do
some clean up and then ship them out to the unsuspecting public.
These vehicles will look normal but after buying one of them you
will most likely develope serious problems down the road.
These vehicles will have mold started that you won't be able to
detect for some time and the odor will be covered up with some
strong sprays that will hide the problem for several weeks/months.
But then one warm day sfter being closed up in the sun you will open
the door to a musty odor that will start to become worse each day
until after a while it will be unbearable.
The odor may be the least of your problems for after a vehicle is
submerged in water for any length of time the water and grit is in
the engine, transmission, differential all the wheel bearings and
working parts. So after driving the vehicle a few hundred miles you
will start to develope major failures to these components.
Also the water will get into the electrical system of the vehicle
and cause shorts in the wiring that may cause fires or serious
damage to the computer system of the vehicle that will result in
very high repair bills.
To avoid buying any of these vehicles you will need to do a
complete inspection of the vehicle to check it out for any tell tale
signs of water damage. If you can't do this youself hire a good
mechanic to check it for you, or use a vehicle inspection service
and Carfax to determine if it has been in a flood or any type of
accident or had major repairs.
Check title for previous owners and if it trails back to recent
sales in the Hurricane/flood states pass up the sale even it seems
to be a good deal as you may have some high repair bills later or
worse, not even be able to salvage vehicle.
Check out my web site for other tips and Automotive information
at
www.jtcbiz.com
Jack Cooper
