re: Are cars that sat in the flood up to their windows salvageable?

Anyone remember the submerged car graveyard they had close-ish to Baton Rouge following Katrina?

Had a car totaled a couple years ago. According to USAA, anytime water reaches the brake level, its an automatic total. Wiring is affected at that level.

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Electrical wiring is shot. That's what totals it. That and your O2 sensor.

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The used car salesman that I spoke to before my purchase assured me that the car will be fine. I got a 30-day warranty!

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I've submerged several vehicles over the last 30 years

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Making note: Don't ride around with BoostAddict.

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Honestly, if I can find a jeep that's been flooded, I might buy it anyway.

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A wrangler I would buy flooded for sure. easy to swap out any part in a wrangler.

I spent the Summer of 1984 working for Norton Buick in downtown Tulsa after the Tulsa Memorial Day Flood (NOAA Link).

The dealership had just received a truckload of new Buick's and Isuzu's each when a wall of water came downhill through the streets and submerged them. The dealership hired 8 temps to recover 63 Buick's and Chevy's from second dealership. All the Isuzu's were sent to crushers. 40 of the Buick's and Chevy's we cleaned up and were sent to community college type programs for auto shop classrooms. 23 Buick's were re-certified by GM insurance and QA and sold under warranty with full notice to the buyers.

We temps stripped the interiors down to the bare metal, power washed the interiors, trunks, engine areas, drained all the fluids, replaced batteries and sat on milk crates to drive them to the mechanics who did their thing with wiring and engines/transmissions. I would drive the body shop Isuzu pickup around the block to an upholstery place with he carpets and seats loaded up.

Nowadays, not worth all that to reclaim a vehicle, especially a "used" vehicle. You're talking too many labor hours, too high materials costs, etc., including devaluation.

The last of the 63 cars was terribad to work on too. The very last was a "courtesy" car loaned to a golf tournament the week before the flood. It sat in the 100+ degree Tulsa weather on a downtown blacktopped parking lot until almost the end of July with several inches of water across the floor. The heat of the day would fog the windows and the cool of the night would re-condense it. We could watch the daily growth of fungii, molds, mildews on the cloth seats, roof interior, glass. The door locks rusted so badly and the heat steaming of the day resulted in having to fling a motor mount at the side window to break it to get into the thing. The steam pressure inside caused the glass to break outward and even the motor mount stayed outside the car.

There are reasons why it is illegal in La. to sell flooded out cars. All the 100000's from Katrina ended up in Fla. where there were wide spread reports of massive number of rip offs.

Incorrect. Flood branded title can be sold easily and is done tons of times. A car branded by a natural disaster (i.e. Katrina or Monroe) can not be re-titled or tagged.