Drowned my Scirocco, any lasting damage?

[Jimrod]

Hi guys,

Well, during an eventful Christmas Eve I managed to get my Scirocco (2.0t petrol) stuck in flood water, about halfway up the exhaust! One of those times, it looked bad (the flood), I tried to turn around but not knowing the area and the Sat Nav not giving me an alternate route I was kinda stuck and then a couple of Honda's came through the other way and made me think I could probably make it - sadly no. Something I've had no problem with before but the Scirocco is probably just a touch low and I made the fatal error of forgetting I'm in an Auto and leaving it in "D" rather than switching to manual - D'oh!!

After a kindly Shogun driver towed me out (and it was a long way through a lot of deep water in hindsight) I managed to get the car going after about 15 minutes of on/off attempts - no engine lights on and running reasonably smoothly aside from an unwillingness to rev - there seemed to be some kind of "slipping" at around 2k, I limped home the remaining 10 miles or so through the countryside and it gradually felt easier on the engine. Trying it now (I was away a few days) it all runs smoothly, starts instantly and seems generally fine but maybe just a touch sluggish, which I could well be imagining as I'm looking for problems. I took it for a 10 minute run and towards the end tried to manually give it a full run through the rev range but it cut rather abruptly at 6k, before the rev warning lines. I backed off instantly and all seemed fine, I'm not sure if the engine has protection as it was probably not 100% warmed up but I'm wondering if it's safe to drive and if there could be any lasting damage from the water - or if I just need to keep driving it calmly for a while until all the water is fully out of the system (if that even is likely to be the case?).

Any thoughts or suggestions or will it likely be ok? Tricky time of year to get the car checked out unfortunately!

Cheers for any info!


Jim.

[Gray170TDI]

If it's driving ok without any misfires or engine Fault lights then fingers crossed it's ok. Could have just been a bit of water in the electrics.

Worst case is that water has got into the air intake located at the bottom of the bonnet. If you engine has injested water you could have bent your con rods which is a engine rebuild Jobby

Keep driving gently for a few days and slowly build on the power. If all feels ok, the give it a full throttle burst which should be the final test. Maybe best getting the fault codes read ASAP first though

[skippy]

Sounds like it is ok if it has been running properly since. I would have thought any serious damage would be almost immediately apparent. It is difficult to know how deep some of this floodwater is, I turned round the other day when coming across what was really a massive puddle, but I heard later that a BMW had its bumper ripped off by driving through it too quickly!

Yes - just take it steady for a day or so to ensure all systems running properly.

[AaronMc]

Could always pop the airbox cover off, which is either 20 Torx or Philips headed screws. And just see if the air filter is wet at all..

[Jimrod]

Thanks for the advice guys!

I've been working away in Vegas for the last week so only just back today - the car is driving fine but towards the end of my trip back from Gatwick (120 miles or so) the Exhaust System light came on, I'm not sure what parts that covers which could be at fault except maybe the Cat but may explain why I felt something was "off" so I'll try to take it to the garage to check the codes tomorrow if they have an opening...

[Jimrod]

Bah, £78 and need the car for the day just to check error codes, really?