driving through flood water

[stuffedpike20]

We are having a climate change winter with record rainfall and flooding in many areas.
I know the advice is 'don't drive through flood water', but I remember 'Now try your brakes' temporary signs either side of flooded roads in the 70's.
I think the advice was to engage first or second gear, rev the engine quite high and slip the clutch all the way through the flood water....and then try your brakes on the other side to dry them out a bit.
Fast forward to today, and drivers seem to think that if they go fast enough, with a big bow wave in front, you will make it through. Unless you have got a snorkel air intake, you are going to ruin the engine as soon as the intake sucks up water.
I think I would trust my minor to get through flood water more than my modern car. The minor is not well sealed by door rubbers etc, and would fill with water, rather than float off like a modern car.
But seriously folks, don't drive through flood water.

[les]

Good advise, there also might be a hidden pothole !

[svenedin]

Very bad idea to drive through floodwater in a Minor. It does have more ground clearance than many modern cars but it will leak like a sieve. At the very least your carpets will be ruined. Due to the height at which the distributor is fitted, it seems likely that the engine would cut out from electrics getting wet before it would catastrophically ingest water from the air intake. Just don't do it!

Stephen

[Wes]

Remember my dad saying know where your air filter intake is? he has a spate of cars in that had sucked up water through their low down intake and filled the bores! Also don't change gear mid flood as this can cause water to be sucked up the exhaust pipe (whether that's true of not i dint know)

[stuffedpike20]

I have driven through flood water before...but only after hanging back and watching another driver going through first to show me how deep it was.

[Bill_qaz]

Most modern cars will give you a wading depth in the specification but it only useful if you know how deep the water is
Discretion is your friend

Knowing the capabilities of the vehicle is also an advantage

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[geoberni]

The river in our village is always a cause of facebook conversations.

Back in 2012, we had 2 Mums with Kids get stuck in the water and it resulted in 5 Rescue Appliances from 3 counties attending.
The daft thing about it was that the water was only about half way up the car doors, flowing quite slowly and there's railings either side.
But the FRS threw everything at it taking a few hours about it. One of them could wade out to the car and look at attaching a rope while waiting for the Water Specialists...

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The water was literally no deeper, nor faster, than as shown here where our Village Flood Warden is clearing debris from the railings...

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But we do get people trying to go through it, BMW are favourites as some models have the air intake down behind the front bumper
This is the reason we get floods at this point, it used to be a Ford, but back in the 1940s, the crossing was laid with pipes and made a 'bridge', with railings...

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So we regularly get cars driven by people who think they know better than the Road Closed signs that are put out....
One of these tried it, seeing the first car already stuck there.....

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[Margret's custodian]

my kids always said i was part dog for my love of driving through bid puddles and obviously secretly loving it all
so but since being custodian of Margret i actively now avoid small puddles and have never used a jetwash on her yet it just seems wrong hose only