Floods can cause severe damage to a car. Even a small amount of water can get inside your car’s engine or gas tank and cause trouble. If a flood has turned your vehicle into a junk car, it’s best to turn it in for scrap metal instead of repairing it or selling it to another consumer.

How to Deal With a Flood-Damaged Car

How Water Can Ruin Your Car

If your car is partially or completely submerged in water, it has likely sustained a great deal of damage. It’s possible for your engine to be damaged by less than one cup of water, whether it gets into the engine or the fuel tank. Call a towing company to get your vehicle to high ground and dry it out right away before assessing the damage.

Water can damage vehicles in several different ways. The most common is electrical. Water can seep under distributor caps, preventing the distributor from relaying its electrical signals to the spark plugs. The head and tail lights need to be drained and dried out to avoid electrical shorts. Electrical damage can also cause the fuse box or the onboard computer to fail. Water damage can affect the fuel supply, too, which can cause your gas tank to rust over time.

If your car’s air intake or carburetor were submerged in water while the engine was running, you might have to deal with engine damage. Water will seep in and contaminate the oil, transmission fluid, carburetor, or fuel injectors. This is the most costly type of water damage.

Why You Should Sell Your Totaled Car for Scrap

In many cases, your insurance company won’t pay to repair your flooded car. Instead, they’ll pay you for the value of your vehicle minus your deductible, declaring it a junk car or a total loss. You can put this money toward buying a new car.

However, you might be wondering if anything can be done with a flood-damaged vehicle. It might be tempting to try to fix it up and sell it. However, when a car is listed as a total loss by the insurance company, it will show up on the title. This will mean that you’ll need to falsify a new title to sell the vehicle. The best option is simply to sell the flooded car for scrap and move on. You can make some money and get the car out of the way.

If your vehicle has suffered flood damage and you’re unsure of what to do with it, check out Phipps Auto Parts, located in Goshen, OH. They allow you to trade in your unused vehicle for cash, and they’ll even tow it away for you. They’re a licensed recycling center, and they’ll thoroughly evaluate your vehicle to determine its value, paying attention to usable parts and the scrap metal market price. Visit their website for a complete list of services, or call (513) 722-2034 to schedule a junk car pickup.