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from the random-and-intermittent-failures dept.
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).
(Score: 4, Informative) by number11 on Sunday September 03 2017, @04:51PM
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.