Centreville, Virginia-based vehicle history provider Carfax estimates there are 400,000 water-damaged cars in its database that were on the roads at the beginning of 2022, and Hurricane Ian may have resulted in as many as 358,000 additional flood-damaged vehicles, mostly in Florida and the Carolinas.
Some of those cars won’t end up in junkyards, and some won’t stay in Florida or the Carolinas.
Unscrupulous sellers routinely buy flood-damaged vehicles, often at salvage auctions after insurance companies have declared them total losses, clean them up and resell them to unsuspecting buyers.
Vehicle history reports will include water damage — the Carfax Flood Check report is free, but not all buyers check vehicle history reports, and some flood-damaged vehicles aren’t declared a total loss and don’t end up with a flood-branded title.
No matter how cosmetically restored a flood-damaged vehicle is or how attractive it is priced, you don’t want to buy one.
“These vehicles might look great today. They might run great today. But these vehicles are truly rotting from the inside out. And a lot of times it is a domino effect. There is one problem and you fix that, and then there’s another problem, and it just keeps going,” said Carfax’s Emilie Voss.
Often flood-damaged vehicles can be health and safety risks too.
“Sometimes these vehicles have things like mold in or bacteria in the ventilation system. And then there are safety issues. The brakes, the rotors, the air bags might not be working properly. Those are things you don’t want to mess around with, but might not be visible to the naked eye,” Voss said.
There are things for buyers to look for, in addition to checking a vehicle’s history.
Carfax lists seven telltale signs of flooding and water damage:
- A musty odor, sometimes masked with a strong air-freshener.
- Upholstery or carpeting that is loose, new, stained or doesn’t match the rest of the interior.
- Damp carpets.
- Rust around doors, under the dash, on the pedals or inside the hood and trunk latches.
- Mud or silt in the glove compartment or under the seats.
- Brittle wires under the dashboard.
- Fog or moisture beads in the interior or exterior lights or instrument panel.
In the D.C. metro area, Carfax estimates there are currently 4,600 vehicles with a water-damage history.
Carfax said following Hurricane Ida in 2021, New Jersey and New York saw the largest year-over-year percent increases in known water-damaged vehicles, jumping 68% and 48% respectively.
