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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
About The Author Jack Cooper Occupation: Auto Appraiser/Inspector Website: 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 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. The site started out to be a business site, hence the jtcbiz name, but turned into a site on vehicles so don't be alarmed with site name as it had a lot of exposure so I left the name.
I am just getting into writing columns and also a couple of books coming out so check me and my site out at www.jtcbiz.com and email me any comments or suggestions you may have for articles or site improvement or something you would like to see on the site at jack@jtcbiz.com.
Thanks Jack Cooper