Flood vehicles! Beware!

Considering the large amount of flooding that has happened in Texas, flood cars are going to be put on the market.

My warning!  Do not buy one no matter how sweet the deal!  They can be a disaster waiting to happen or worse.  They can ruin your good health.

I have two good local examples.  One of my customer's daughter, drove their beautiful Volvo S60 into flood waters in Wichita, and escaped through the sunroof.  About 4 hours later he had one of his neighbors pull the vehicle out of the water with a tractor and over to his house.  He called me and asked me advise on how to clean up a flood car to get it running again.  I gave him professional knowledge but warned him not to even try, but rather sell it for scrap and don't look back.  His type "A" personality overruled sound advise and he dove into the project. Two weeks later his called me back and smugly announced the car was cleaned up and driving again.  I asked him if he had gotten sick, to which he admitted he spent several days in the hospital.  Was that worth it!?

Another customer of mine called me up 3 weeks after a flood in Newton.  He wanted to bring the vehicle over and show me how well he had it cleaned up.  When he drove up to the shop it looked really nice.  He stepped out and held the door open for me to look in.  I stuck my head in the door and instantly recognized the smell of mold.  It gave me an acute head ace.  I asked him who was getting the car.  He told me it was for his daughter to drive to college.  I told him, "Don't you dare give this to your daughter.  She is going to get sick."

Lastly, it may not be mold.  You could get something from just a minor scratch on the metal of a flood vehicle.  No matter how much you dry out a vehicle, and Lysol it down, there are going to be rusted edges of metal somewhere that will not get clean.  Those sharp rusted metal edges are like hypodermic needles waiting to inject some pathogen into your blood stream that was in that flood water.  And it only takes a mild scratch to do it.  Those flood waters contained dead animals, sewage, chemicals, and who knows what all.

That beautiful BMW might be sold for a song, but you can save, get another job, or use your savings to buy a nice one if you really want one.  But you will never buy a new body.  You only get one of those.  And it was a priceless gift.  Take the best care of it that you can.

Don't buy a flood car!  Don't even think about it!