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posted by martyb on Sunday September 03 2017, @09:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the random-and-intermittent-failures dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://qz.com/1066966/how-many-cars-were-destroyed-by-hurricane-harvey/ and also at other news outlets.

For Harvey victims, it's going to be rough if they lost their car, Houston is a very car-dependent city. Like many states, Texas only requires liability insurance — only those that bought comprehensive coverage will be able to claim the loss on insurance.

Ideally most of these flooded cars will be scrapped, as it's very likely water damage to electrical systems and other parts are not cost effective to repair professionally. However, there will be "new" and used cars on the market that have been underwater (to a greater or lesser extent). Many will be sold "as is" and some of them will be cleaned up and sold fraudulently as if they were not damaged. Buyer beware, these cars will be shipped all over in search of buyers (marks?)

After Katrina, friends of mine with time on their hands bought several new-flooded Honda Civics (which they were familiar with from building "street stock" race cars). They pulled out the interior and then the full wiring harness. Bought new harness from Honda and replaced everything, and had perfectly good near-new cars for pennies on the dollar (and a few days of hard labor).


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday September 03 2017, @12:58PM (11 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 03 2017, @12:58PM (#563128)

    Its a nice sentiment but you pretty much have to pull the entire interior. So a gearhead respects his favorite engine block remains, but to joe average driver an entirely new interior is basically an unfamiliar new car.

    I would theorize its not economically possible in that if it were scalable it would be available to everyone as kind of an "extreme detailing service". It would be kind of cool to take the ruined interior out of an older car and swap in a new custom set of everything when buying off-lease car or similar. Previous owner was a smoker? Who cares swap it out. Also replace stuff like heater core and some other HVAC stuff that's deeply embedded while you have it torn apart. But this service not generally existing would imply its not economically viable beyond specialty custom work. Which is a pity.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Immerman on Sunday September 03 2017, @04:02PM (8 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Sunday September 03 2017, @04:02PM (#563156)

    I think you're probably right, at least in this country.

    "A few days hard work"... Call it 3 to 5 8-12 hour days, depending on what else they did? , so 24-60 hours. Most of it probably relatively unskilled labor of the sort that a conscientious high-scool kid with a year of experience could do. Call it what, $20/hour to hold on to the "conscientious" sorts? So about $500-$1200 in labor. Enough to buy into the low-end of the used car market. Throw in a new replacement interior, potentially only available from the dealer since it's so rarely replaced, and you're probably pushing past $2k, at which point you're getting into quite reliable used vehicle range.

    It's a damned shame though - what a horrible waste of a bunch of expensive llghtly-damaged machines that are only a bit of work away from being in good condition again. One of the many reasons I'd love to see cars get a lot more standardized - just how many variations of "alternators" or "driver's seat mounting brackets" do we really need? Even the cosmetic interior panels - there was a time when there was a lot of variation among car shapes and sizes that might justify it, but these days almost all the mainstream cars come in one of a handful of very-nearly identical sizes and shapes. Wouldn't be that much of a stretch to standardize at least the outlines and fastener positions, turning them into a bunch of life-size Lego components and creating a new market for personal car customizations. Of course that market would likely come at a high cost in new-car sales, so I won't hold my breath on it starting in a capitalist economy.

    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday September 03 2017, @04:34PM

      by mhajicek (51) on Sunday September 03 2017, @04:34PM (#563167)

      What's more is how they change every year. Some parts are good for a span of a few model years, others are year specific.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by number11 on Sunday September 03 2017, @04:51PM

      by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Sunday September 03 2017, @04:51PM (#563180)

      I dunno. The interior, yes. I had a car that had an upholstery fire in the cab. And it wasn't a new or expensive car, it must have been 7 years old. The insurance paid for replacing all the foam and fabric (seats, headliner, etc.) and running an ozone machine in it for a week. Looked like new inside, though the shop guy warned that I'd probably be able to smell the smoke on muggy summer days. But... add onto that replacing the wiring harnesses. Mold in the sound deadener pads. Getting the crud out of the headlights, now that we don't have sealed beams any more. The radio. The computer (would you want a computer that was submerged in flood water for a couple of days?) And what do you do about water that's leaked into the block via the air intake, dipstick, etc.? And the tranny? You gonna tear those down to check? Flood water in the brake and power steering reservoirs. Now you're running in negative territory. There's no way in hell that I'd knowingly buy a flood-damaged car.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday September 03 2017, @08:03PM (2 children)

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday September 03 2017, @08:03PM (#563215) Journal

      It's a damned shame though - what a horrible waste of a bunch of expensive llghtly-damaged machines that are only a bit of work away from being in good condition again.

      Its mostly a energy waste.

      Cars recycle almost entirely, And its probably better than mining the earth for new metals.

      You yank the engine and transmission, which mostly just need to be flushed, and can be sold into the repair market world wide for decades to come. (So can the windshields). Motor and transmission designs are already decades old, and will continue to be around for as long as we run ICE automobiles. Nobody is spending a lot of money these days coming up with new ICE designs.

      The wheels and axles battery are the last heavy parts. Not much demand for those or the rest of the body. Spend the energy and melt them down. Seats, interior and electronics you trash. Wiring harness you send for separate recycle. The efficiency of this, done on large scale is really not that bad.

      We are basically trashing upholstery here.

      Recycle them all, I say. When they come back, maybe it will be as an electric car.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday September 04 2017, @02:11AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 04 2017, @02:11AM (#563270) Journal

        Nobody is spending a lot of money these days coming up with new ICE designs.

        Oh, but they do. See VW diesel, higher efficiency, more NOx, Bosch software.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday September 04 2017, @01:36PM

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday September 04 2017, @01:36PM (#563446)

        Huh? A lot of this is totally wrong. Carmakers are still making all-new engine designs; the "SkyActiv" engines in Mazdas are only a few years old or so, and they're supposed to be introducing a HCCI engine in a year or two. Other automakers are much the same; no one's still using shitty old engines from the 90s now.

        Wheels are completely recyclable. What do you think people do when they damage an OEM wheel? There's a healthy industry for used OEM wheels, since the brand-new ones cost a fortune, and aluminum wheels do crack once in a while (like from hitting a large pothole, or being curbed too many times). Axles are also recycled; where do you think AutoZone gets those "remanufactured" axles they sell? The rubber boots on axles don't last forever, and it's generally much easier to just replace the entire axles than to take it apart to replace the boot. Most axle remanufacturing probably amounts to little more than just taking it apart, replacing the boots, checking the CV joints are still within spec, and calling it done.

        With electronics, electronic modules under the hood (plus the harnesses) are usually waterproof, so unless they got electrically damaged somehow, they're probably OK, and will likely be resold on the used market.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Monday September 04 2017, @01:26AM

      by driverless (4770) on Monday September 04 2017, @01:26AM (#563262)

      A general thought on the OP:

      Like many states, Texas only requires liability insurance — only those that bought comprehensive coverage will be able to claim the loss on insurance.

      While I have genuine sympathy for people who were caught out by events that were entirely beyond their control, I just can't seem to work up much of it for those who deliberately chose to not insure their car against damage/loss. You made that decision, now you have to deal with it.
      Before I get downmodded for this, I have complete sympathy for all the victims of Harvey, I just can't work up much of it for people who have made a conscious decision not to protect themselves through something as simple and basic as getting insurance on the second most valuable item they own (after their home, if they're not renting).

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 04 2017, @12:16PM (1 child)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 04 2017, @12:16PM (#563425)

      So about $500-$1200 in labor.

      Its an interesting data point that a decade or two ago according to UAW figures a $25K car had about $2500 of UAW labor embedded in it, which is probably higher than $20/hr. So its going to take as much work or more to rebuild a car than to just build another one. That would imply flood renovation is a complete and total rebuild, if done right, anyway.

      If only the marketplace could be honest ... a semi-destroyed car might be OK for some weird apps. As long as the air bags and seatbelts work, sell them cheap to 16 year old male drivers who are gonna crash anyway.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 04 2017, @01:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 04 2017, @01:33PM (#563444)

        > ...who are gonna crash anyway.

        There is also a need for cars for demolition derby -- but somehow I don't think that all these special niches for a car that is "going to be crashed anyway" add up to more than a small fraction of the cars with water damage.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 03 2017, @06:05PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 03 2017, @06:05PM (#563193)

    Most flood cars can be cleaned up and detailed in under a week. I have seen it done many times unfortunately. They usually last 1-2 years before pretty much everything in the car shits itself.

    You do not need to swap the whole interior. Usually a good steam clean is good enough to make them usable and not smell like ass.

    What you can not stop however is the rust. It will eat everything. Wires, bolts, screws, bearings, everything. You pretty much have to gut all of the electrical and swap any screws and stop any rust around existing screw holes. The interior you can usually clean out pretty good. Even with a 'smoker' car.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Sunday September 03 2017, @08:06PM

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday September 03 2017, @08:06PM (#563217) Journal

      Most flood cars can be cleaned up and detailed in under a week. I have seen it done many times unfortunately. They usually last 1-2 years before pretty much everything in the car shits itself.

      That's why you take the time (a couple extra weeks) to do it right, or not do it at all.

      Drowned wiring has corrosion everywhere, as does the body. Cleaning and Detailing (with or without a new interior) doesn't even begin to address the problem.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.