Re: Accidental Underwater Driving Incident

[ets@wrkgrp.com (Edward T Spire)]

>From: human <human@nh.ultranet.com>
>Date: Mon, 21 Oct 96 17:21:15 -0500
>Subject: Accidental Underwater Driving Incident
>
>I'd been out storm watching (waves breaking over car in York ME) And, well,
>there's  this bridge in Portsmouth that goes under a railroad track and the
>storm drain was plugged with leaves (duh!).  When I approached it there was
>a Japanese car stuck in the water but the Jeep wagoneer ahead of me made it
>ok.  I'd been running SUV's off the road all evening, so I decides to follow
>this one.  1/2 way through and the engine quits.  water half way up my doors
>.  Luckily the Jeep stuck around and pushed (ugh) us both out.  (This
>produced a wave of water that came over my hood!)  That water rose 6-8"
>while I watched for the next half hour.  My car won't crank yet.  Went back
>with the F250 (why wasn't I driving that in the first place? Yankee
>stupidity) to jump it at 3 AM, no dice.  The starter either sort of whirs &
>grinds or just draw tons of current.  must be full of water.  I hope the
>intake did not draw water and hydrolock a cylinder or two.  Tonight I try
>again, will check oil for evidence of water and be prepared to remove plugs
>and use baster (!) to remove water.  The engine was actually dry under the
>hood right after the incident.  I'm hoping that it just died due to sensors
>etc. being shorted out - like the 0.3 bar oil pressure unit for instance. 
>And then a starter full of water can't do much, can it?  Hoping there will
>be hundreds of crossed fingers across the globe while I try to fix this
>tonight (about 2 AM Z time?).
>
>BTW we go at least 6 inches of rain here in 24 hours.  Not much by Texas
>standards, but the most I've measured in five years.

Here in the Chicago area we had a very bad storm a while back, and some
folks got a bunch of water in their neighborhoods.  A guy who works for
me had about eight inches of water in his garage, which caused some
minor water damage to his sedan.  Ran fine, but the carpets were soggy
etc.

So he mentions this to his insurance agent, along with the other damage
to the home.  The insurance guy says that they'll have to have an
adjuster look at the car.  The adjuster looks at the car and informs
him that Illinois law requires that any car that sustains any amount of
water immersion damage must be taken out of service, and the insurance
company is required to "total" the car, take it from him, junk it, and
pay him the book value for the car.

This was an enormous suprise to us, since we don't get much flooding
around here.  Thought it would be good for you to know about this kind
of thing, lets you get similarly suprised someday.


== "When you believe in things you don't understand, then you suffer" ==
=============== Steveland Morris (a.k.a. Stevie Wonder) ================
Ed Spire                                  Voice: 847-781-6940 ext 6943
The Workstation Group                     Fax:   847-781-6973
1900 N. Roselle Road, Suite 408           Email: ets@wrkgrp.com
Schaumburg, Illinois  60195  USA          Web:   http://www.wrkgrp.com