I drove in a flood and my engine is flooded now

[Golf88]

hey guys

Perth had a bad storm im not sure if you all heard. I got court and my engine seems to be flooded i tried to let it dry out and start it but it wouldnt so on the weekend i opened the air filter and water poured out of the engine side of the tube... was a little worried at this stage the dipstick has water in it. I have no idea how im going to fix it drop.. the oil, spray the electrics with special water dispersant, charge the battery, change the spark plugs...? should that work??? what else to do?? and any advise on how to do it??

2.0L Golf 99

[gerhard]

Depends.

If you drove it and sucked the water into the engine till it stopped, your engine will be "hydrauliced" and will require extensive repair.

If the water rose around it while parked, and filled the engine, you will have to drain all the fluids - engine oil, gearbox oil, etc, and refill. Dry all electrics, remove plugs and turn it over to spit out any water. However, you may have also caused damage by trying to start it with water in the pistons.

[Transporter]

hey guys

Perth had a bad storm im not sure if you all heard. I got court and my engine seems to be flooded i tried to let it dry out and start it but it wouldnt so on the weekend i opened the air filter and water poured out of the engine side of the tube... was a little worried at this stage the dipstick has water in it. I have no idea how im going to fix it drop.. the oil, spray the electrics with special water dispersant, charge the battery, change the spark plugs...? should that work??? what else to do?? and any advise on how to do it??

2.0L Golf 99

Is your car fully insured?

[gerhard]

Is your car fully insured?

That's a good question

I just re-read the title - "I drove my car in a flood", so I reckon the insurance will be claimed on for a new engine.

[Golf88]

on third part mates, it sucked the water in!! but i mean a new engine is going to be like $1600ish and being a 22yr old male its still ends up cheaper putting a new engine in it

[Golf88]

i just hope the ecu is alive

[Manaz]

If you drove it and sucked the water into the engine till it stopped, your engine will be "hydrauliced" and will require extensive repair.

To expand on this - if your engine sucked water into the cylinders through the air intake, then your engine is quite possibly significantly damaged.

When running normally, your engine compresses the air/fuel mix by a ratio of something close to 10:1 - that works fine with a fuel/air mix, but does not work at all with water (liquids are by and large considered to be uncompressable, this is the theory behind hydraulics). So what happens instead is that as the piston tries to rise up the cylinder, the water in the top of the cylinder stops it, and the force from this is pushed back down the piston into the conrod and then into the crankshaft, where it tends to do significant damage.

If you're really lucky in such a situation, you'll just end up with a broken conrod. It's much more likely however that you'll spin a bearing on the crankshaft or even punch a hole in the bottom of the block. This happened to one of the Mk4 R32 owners recently.

The lesson from all this is that if you're in rising water, either get out of it ASAP before it gets too high, or turn the engine off to avoid the engine damage (water damage if the engine is not running is generally limited to requiring things be dried out). If your car has a CAI of some kind, know where it picks its air up from, and be aware of this - the stock air intake level is up at the headlight level, but CAIs can be much lower, commonly down in the lower front left guard).

[Manaz]

i just hope the ecu is alive

Doubtful that the ECU would be damaged (it's housed right up under the base of the windscreen in the Mk4), but from your description of the event, it sounds like the engine will need significant work unfortunately.

[Golf88]

it was at pretty low spead... 35km and it was at headlight hight so im hopping there is some luck on my side... otherwise 2nd hand engine looks to be the worsted case.... good to here the ecu should be okay...

[vert1]

Engine will be poked I'd say, easy way to check is to remove plugs and crank it over to let any water get pushed out.
Let it dry out and do a compression test, can be bent conrod and have also seen broken pistons in this type of situation.

[Manaz]

it was at pretty low spead... 35km and it was at headlight hight so im hopping there is some luck on my side... otherwise 2nd hand engine looks to be the worsted case.... good to here the ecu should be okay...

Speed's largely irrelevant unfrotunately - your pistons compress whatever's in your cylinders at ~10:1 regardless of road or engine speed.

[Beaker]

Petrols can take a bit of a drink and still live (diesels can't - a capfull of water into a diesel will bend all the rods).


First check the oil, see if its cloudy, if it is change it and the filter - that goes for gearbox etc as well.

Pull the plugs out, pull the piping off the intake/turbo/intercooler etc and make sure there is no water in there, the last thing to want to do is suck more in, and turn it over on the starter motor, if you see water spitting out the plug holes its had a drink, keep turning it over untill its not spitting anything out, put the plugs in and have a go starting it with the aircleaner out (that needs to go in the bin if it got wet).

If it doesn't start, but turns over happily its quite likely you've sucked water into the electronics and its just a matter of waiting for them to dry out, if its making noises, chances are you've bent a rod and its going to be expensive.

If it starts but doesn't sound right TURN IT OFF and take it to a mechanic, an engine with a slightly bent rod can run, but at the slightest rev can snap and punch a hole in the block (I've seen it happen with my own eyes).



If its had water over the level of the ECU chances are the insurance co will write it off regardless.


Thank your lucky stars its not a diesel, that WOULD be dead, this might be ok if you are lucky.

[Golf88]

Petrols can take a bit of a drink and still live (diesels can't - a capfull of water into a diesel will bend all the rods).


First check the oil, see if its cloudy, if it is change it and the filter - that goes for gearbox etc as well.

Pull the plugs out, pull the piping off the intake/turbo/intercooler etc and make sure there is no water in there, the last thing to want to do is suck more in, and turn it over on the starter motor, if you see water spitting out the plug holes its had a drink, keep turning it over untill its not spitting anything out, put the plugs in and have a go starting it with the aircleaner out (that needs to go in the bin if it got wet).

If it doesn't start, but turns over happily its quite likely you've sucked water into the electronics and its just a matter of waiting for them to dry out, if its making noises, chances are you've bent a rod and its going to be expensive.

If it starts but doesn't sound right TURN IT OFF and take it to a mechanic, an engine with a slightly bent rod can run, but at the slightest rev can snap and punch a hole in the block (I've seen it happen with my own eyes).



If its had water over the level of the ECU chances are the insurance co will write it off regardless.


Thank your lucky stars its not a diesel, that WOULD be dead, this might be ok if you are lucky.

please please please hope this is the case... so cant dry the air filter out?

[JustCruisn]

A paper filter would probably be stuffed. If you have an after market cotton filter, POD etc, then you should clean it and if required re-oil too.

[Manaz]

The reason diesels are so much worse is they run much higher compression ratios - which just amplifies the issue that you simply can't compress a cylinder full of water.

Driving a car through water at headlight height, given the air intake position directly behind the headlights though, I'd guess it probably copped more than just a "bit of a drink". The R32 (owned by "r32 uberwagen") that recently died is proof that you can indeed kill a petrol engine this way.

Regarding the air filter - it's a $20 part, $40 if you try get it from a dealership. Given what's happened, why risk trying to reuse it?

If you're not sure, get the car towed to a mechanic and get it checked out.