It has been a bad year for my highrise rental apartment building this year in terms of flooding. I park at the lowest level sub-basement, and last night, the flooding reached about an inch or two above the floor of my car. So the carpet is soaked, though thankfully, not the seats.

Googling indicates that drying out the carpets requires removal of the seats. Flooding seems to be a big deal, requiring prompt attention. There is a risk of water or gunk being logged in all sorts of places, causing mold, rust, or obstructing drainage.

My insurance has set up an appointment for an inspection. However, I was wondering if anyone familiar with the physcial design of the car can provide a heads-up (reasoned speculation or otherwise) about the ills that one can expect?

Before I found from google that flooding could be so potentially serious, I was thinking of simply bringing it to a "detailing" shop. I thought that they shampoo the carpet anyway, so they would have powerful vacuums to suck water from carpet. Not sure if that's advisable, even if the car gets a clean bill of health.

 

If the water ingress was a couple inches above the floor, carpeting is the least of your concerns. I'll be interested to see what your insurance will decide.

 

Flooding can be serious. If you can find some heated place to leave the car inside where this time of year it is very low humidity, then remove then remove the carpets and dry it out inside. Carpet cleaning or replacement of the removed carpets will also need to be done. If they are cleaned, make absolutely sure that the carpets are completely dry before re-installation.

Be careful using the insurance company. In the US they are required to brand the car as a flood vehicle and the title is branded accordingly. That makes it difficult to sell and register again later and considerably reduces it's value.

Just check it out with your insurance company and see what they say. Since they are not taking title to the car you may be able to have them pay for the damage repair and to keep from having a branded title. I do not know Canadian law. If they do not pay a claim, there will not be any branding.

 

@sneefy: My insurance company relies on a local repair shop that relies on a local detailing shop. The insurance company also has an appraiser that I assume corroborates the findings.

The local repair shop thought that the detailing would fall under my comprehensive deductible of $500. Then the detailing shop clarified to him that the carpets and seats need to be removed in order to access a foam layer beneath the carpet. I'm not sure what my insurance company thinks yet. I suspect that the appraiser is often aligned with the findings of the repair shop (who has outsourced the assessment to the detailing shop in this case). My perspective of all of this is that it's an amazing network of trust.

You said that carpeting was the least of my concerns. What do you think would be the main areas of concern? Empirically, the things I've noticed are a throaty rumbling, like a bad muffler (or a good Harley), front seats that don't slide back and forth as easily as they did before, and sticky rear brakes, which seem to have abated by now.

@n9cv: I am indeed in Canada (Ontario). As I live in a highrise rental building, however, I don't have anywhere to dry out the car. Based on the above description of what the detailing shop intends to do, however, my gut says that the remediation will be comprehensive.

Whether or not Insurance pays for the remediation depends on whether it costs more than the $500 deductible. I spoke with them this evening. If remediation is less $500, I can choose not to claim, but they would still record what happened (I will inquire about branding). However, if I go through the claim process for a remediation that is less than $500, I get a replacement rental vehicle. It's probably not that big a benefit, but if there is no branding up here(and that's *if*), then why not? My premimums don't go up for this incident, according to the adjustor.

If it turns out that branding *does* occur up here, then I need to ask whether their recording of the incident without a claim leads to branding. If not, then I may just have the issue recorded and avoid claiming the remediation. Maybe. I mean, I'm not sure that I'd want to hide this from a buyer in the future. In fact, I'm kind of sure I would want to be transparent and provide a complete record, including receipts for work done on the car.

If branding happens even when I avoid claiming (and Insurance records the incident), then it becomes a moot point; the decision to claim will not be driven by branding, which afflicts both options (to claim or not to claim). Might as well claim.

A final factor to consider is whether I will sell the vehicle well before running it into the ground. I typically do the latter, and if I don't expect to change this behaviour, then branding becomes moot again.

My mulling of the trade-offs is a bit meandering, but since there are several reasons not to worry too much about the possibility of branding, I'm leaning toward claiming.

 

I sure am hoping you are not advocating fraud and withholding the fact of flooding from anyone who would consider purchasing the vehicle. There is a reason this is an enforceable law.

 

Your biggest concern should be dying if an airbag fails to deploy due to corroded or shorted electrical circuits and sensors.

The electrical malfunctions, some of which can appear 8 month or a year later, is the main reason that flooding is serious. It is not cosmetic, not the carper or the smell that most people worry about.

The cost of diagnosis and repair of electrical gremlins could potentially exceed the cost of the vehicle down the road, especially if any expensive repair may need to be made as a result of the flooding, e.g. replacing an ECM module, air bag sensors, wiring harnesses, diagnosing relay malfunctions, etc.

Look under the seats to see if water got into the wiring.

 

This is disconcerting. Electrical malfunctions can be silent, and hence not even troubleshot.

Thank you for the photograph. I'm having a hard time mentally positioning the innards in your photograph. It looks like it is under the dash, yet you mention checking underneath the seat. Can you please clarify where it is, and the orientation of the picture?

If it's under the dash, it's higher then the water level rose to, which was about 2 inches above the floor. However, I am cognizant that some have mentioned that wiring runs along the floor as well, so I'm not too sure how to assess the implications.

As well, when you say under the seats, I assum you mean on the floor under the seats, not the underside of the seats? The reason I ask is because I've never seen any indications of wiring or electrical on the floor. Just carpet, rails, and mats.

If your photo is of a removed dash, I would have a hard time getting at that. I don't know how to remove the dash, and as someone parking in a highrise underground lot, we're not allowed to work on our cars down there.

I'm wondering if speaking with the service department of a Honda dealer would provide franker assessment of what testing is needed, and as a separate question, what the Insurance might be willing to pay for.

 

Here's the situation to date.

The repair shop favoured by the insurance company dismissed the possibility of electrical problems, but without explanation. This gets me extremely concerned, because if there was a good reason for dismissing the concern, at the very least, it should be explained. Especially considering the consensus of the online information about the long term risk of electrical problems from flooding.

Of further concern is the fact that the repair shop is sending the car to a detailing shop to rip up the carpets and remediate as necessary. I don't have confidence that a detailing ship will have the expertise to know where to look for waterlogged electrical or electronic components. Even if the repair shop had such experts, the car will be off-site at the detailing shop when all the guts are exposed.

I talked to someone in a Honda service centre, and they shared a similar lack of confidence that a detailing shop would have the expertise to remediate against latent problems with the electrical systems. The ideal solution (at least for the electrical) was to have an auto electrician at Honda examine the state of those systems and components. Apparently, they would have the design expertise on my car (or access to it) to optimally focus their remediation efforts, They would of course have to rip up the carpets, same as the detailing place would be doing. I was not able to reach someone live to determine if they actually did cleaning.

The insurance adjustor suggested running electrical tests after the detailing work was done, but I expressed my doubt that this would provide indications of the physical conditions that lead to electrical problems months or upward of a year down the road. We agreed to wait until the appraisal come back to see whether the recommended work addresses my concern of having an experienced auto technician being able to remediate the electrical systems while everything was exposed.

What a complicated world this is.

 

I did not want to overly alarm you on branding. I just wanted to let you know that I could possibly happen. In the US every state is different. So what gets branded in one will not get branded in another. USUALLY only vehicles that the insurance company takes title to get branded, but as I said every state is different. In some states when a title is branded as a flood vehicle it can never be returned to a repaired title. In those states the vehicles get bought at auction and moved to another states where they are dried out, repaired, and re-titled as "repaired". I have a friend that bought a flooded Ford Explorer from a state that would never allow it to be "repaired". It had water up to the bottom of the dash. He dried it out and replaced the carpets. He then got it inspected by the state and received a "repaired" title. That was 4 years ago and it has been his daily driver with no problems other than a starter that went bad. A branded and "repaired" title vehicle is worth 30% to 50% LESS than a clean title one.

None of this may apply in your case because the insurance company will never have possession of the title.

I just wanted you to check ahead of time to make sure that yours will not be branded. I have no idea what they do in Ontario.

 

Fraud? Not necessarily. In a few "nanny" states (I will not name them to keep from being political), legislators got carried away with their laws or rules. Others states are more reasonable. In the those nanny states someone has to pay for these artificial additional losses. It is rate payer on their insurance bill. In most states there is a difference between a broken window or a convertible top leak causing a seat to get wet and a vehicle submerged in 5 feet of water. In a few states it is all water or flood damage. Think about that the next time you get an insurance bill. In one of those nanny states, State Farm got sued by the state for not branding titles of undamaged theft recovered vehicles. In most states "salvage" vehicles are vehicles damaged beyond economical repair (a total loss). Branding undamaged or minor damage vehicles reduces their values by 30% to 50%.

 

I appreciate the heads up on branding, but for me, it's not a big concern. If it gets branded, then it gets branded.

 

After talking with technicians at Honda's service centre, I was able to articulate to my insurance company the compelling reasons for seeking the expertise of Honda in the remediation. The insurance company has agreed to send their appraisers to Honda. I thank all the respondents here for sharing their techincal expertise on the risks that result from flooding.

I'm still marvelling at how the staff member at insurance company's favoured repair shop could immediately dismiss the prospects of electrical problems up front, knowing that the hardware was submerged in at least two inches of water. I'm also marvelling at how he proposed a mechanical inspection at the detailing shop to which he would outsource the cleaning. A Honda technician confirmed that the SRS module sits on the floor (which controls the airbag, according to Google), so this is a safety issue; an inspector would not know unless they had access to the design expertise on the Honda Fit's electrical/electronic systems.

The Honda technician only informed me of the SRS module's location yesterday, so I haven't brought up the safety aspect with the insurance adjustor. When her appraisor speaks with the Honda technicians, however, I'm sure that the necessity of having Honda expertise will become apparent.

 

Most decent insurance companies would total a car because the floor got soaked. I've seen it happen many times over the years, even cars that ran and drove fine at the time of inspection can get written off and towed away.

The carpet and padding can wick water upward so damage can extend quite a bit higher than just the basic water line.

They all know modern cars interiors can have expensive control units and much unprotected wiring (connectors inside the cabin are not water resistant) located on or very near the floor that are susceptible to water damage, and fixing that correctly is certainly not cheap---but not fixing it can be far more expensive (and dangerous).



That's quite telling.
Glad you insisted on getting it to someone who knows the product.




(Didn't read the entire thread before posting, sorry)

 

Five things caused me to insist on a Honda repair shop: (i) The nonsensical assertion that there was no electrical problem, and the noncommunicative manner of the guy at the repair shop; (ii) the preponderance of consensus evidence online that electrical problems are the major issue with flooding (possibly rivaled by mold); (iii) the fact that, at no time during the discussion with the insurance adjustor did the topic of electrical issues get raised; (iv) all the information about the wiring at floor level on this forum, including the concern about airbags; and (iv) the sense of what constituted reasonable follow-up from talking with Honda, along with exhortations that I seek remediation accordingly.

But I gotta tell you, the conduct of the insurance company and their chosen repair shop is very, very disturbing. It's not just omission of known information, but active deception, at least at the repair shop. It's not just the cost and inconvenience of almost assured problems down the road, but people's lives at stake. I understand the pressure for them to minimize claims, but at some point, it becomes criminal.

 

I don't think it's the responsibility of the local agent to minimize claims...that's the job of the adjusters, inspectors and estimators.

Maybe the agent is getting a kickback from work sent to that shop, or maybe the shop is run by someone in the agents family/friends/good ol' boys network (speculation and conjecture).



I assume your insurance COMPANY is large and well known?

I'd like to think the large, well known insurance company would like to be informed and aware they have an agent who is doing such disservice to their clients.

 

I'm not cynical enough to *conclude* that the repair shop guy is incentived to under-assess repairs, but that doesn't mean that I don't wonder. The fact that he initially ruled out electrical problems, in contradiction with the overwhelming prevailing information, is consistent with the fact that the claims advisor made no mention of this well established risk in our communications -- until I brought it up. A possible explanation for this, however, is that the advisor refrains from making suggestions of specific problems until verified by the repair guy. I would be OK with that if it weren't for the incomprehensible behaviour of the repair guy.

My insurance company seems big to me, because it is owned by one of the major banks in Canada. They are aware of the reasons for my lack of confidence with the repair guy, and the fact that outsourcing the cleanup and inspection of the electrical systems incurs the risk of outsourcing in general -- limited visbility, limited ability to exercise due diligence, and sometimes, limited accountability because of this. The whole situation made me uncomfortable. Outsourcing itself might be acceptable if done by a reputable repair shop, but the baffling initial behaviour of the repair guy tanked that possibility early on.