There are hundreds of thousands of cars, trucks, classic cars, motorcycles and other types of vehicles that have moderate to severe flood damage, and many thousands more will be damaged this year, make sure you are prepared to be able to ferret this cars out before one winds up in your driveway.
Before buying get a suspected car,get a good pre inspection on the car or if a Classic Car etc. get a proper Classic Car Appraisal, then you will be armed to go to your insurance agent and get properly insured.
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. These are the cars that will need expert Inspections and Appraisals, as they will be harder to detect.
The Dealers 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. And this could be avoided if you have an expert Automotive Appraiser and or Inspector check it out for you.
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 after 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. And this type of odor is very hard to cover up for any length of time.
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 have a complete inspection by an Automotive Inspection professional, to inspect or Appraise the vehicle for any tell tale signs of water damage. If you can't do this yourself hire a good mechanic to check it for you, or use a vehicle inspection service,like CarFacts, 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.
I know several people that had Classic Cars, Vintage Cars, Street Rods and high dollar Motorcycles that got severely damaged or destroyed only to find out their insurance coverage did not come close to covering the replacement cost of their vehicles. If only they would have had a proper Appraisal on their vehicles that could have all been avoided and their vehicle would have been covered for the proper amount.
Don't let that happen to you. It dosn't have to be a severe storm that damages your vehicle, it could be damaged by a fire, an accident or numerous other things, so check out the proper way to have your vehical Appraised at Carfacts Appraisal information.
Jack Cooper Occupation: Auto Appraiser/Inspector
Website: http://www.jtcbiz.com
Biography: I have over 40 years experience in the Automotive field, from ASE Master Tech to owner of my own repair shop and have been doing Automotive Appraisals and extended warranty/pre-purchase inspections for the past 12 years.
I have been working on building and just about anything connected with cars all my life. I have been a Drag Racer (early years) drove stock cars (asphalt and dirt) built Hot Rods and restored classic cars, so have been around just about any type of vehicle you can imagine.
My hobby is NASCAR and building web-sites. My current web-site http://www.jtcbiz.com is a site I started several years ago as an information site for Cars and expanded into trucks, 4X4's, ATV's, Motorcycles and NASCAR.
Thanks,
Jack Cooper