Water in car after flood (Hurricane Katrina)

[Rodericb]

First of all, I live in Laplace, LA (19 miles from N.O.) and managed to evacuate before Katrina demolished my city. However, since I could only take two vehicles, we decided to take the F-150 and the Envoy. Both of my Bimmers (E34 & E28) got water on the floor board but that was as high as the water got. My problem now is that both of the batteries are now dead. I'm pretty confident that the water got no higher than the marks on the car which indicate, along with the wet carpet, that water only got up as high as the floor boards. When I went to check on both cars, I noticed that the car had unlocked itself (I'm guessing that this is a feature that I'm not familiar with). Am I right in thinking that simply replacing or recharging the battery will resolve the problem or is this an indication of more flood damage than I am led to believe? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Jeff N.]

I really have no relevant flood advice but please accept my prayers and best wishes to you and your family. What a terrible event you've all lived through.

Maybe re the cars, if they got water inside the car such that the carpet's wet, I'd consider pulling the seats and peeling up the carpet to help it dry. While I can't speak for the E28, the E34 has a terribly thick foam pad under the carpet to reduce noise. This would serve as an immense sponge and hold water for weeks. I think you'd need to take some pretty aggressive steps dry it out.

Again to the E34, I'd check to see if the water got high enough to douse the rear main power block under the back seat. If that looks try, I'd think you're in pretty good shape. If that looks wet, you may want to consider some added steps before you put power back to the car. I'd for sure make sure it's dry and really consider replacing the modules back there. I think the check control module + some misc relays and fuses live back there.

Hope this helps. I've never had water damage in my car but I have pulled a few E34s apart and am somewhat familar with the parts around the floorboard.

[Paul in NZ]

dont know about the unlock feature but i guess you should clean em up and dry them out as soon as possible,as you do that you should find any other damage.How long were you away?It seems strange that boh batteries are dead.....

[winfred]

the e28 would handle it better then the e34 as all of the electronics are not on the floor of the car under the back seat, the computers that run most of the car are under there on the e34. first things first findout what has water in it and get it out and replace the fluid, check the tranny and diff (zf automatics have water soluable glue holding the friction material on the clutches = bad thing) if the auto tranny got wet DO NOT run the motor as this will mix it and that ****'s almost impossible to flush out, be on the look out for anything with a bearing that got wet as it's not long for this world, like tensioner rollers, ac comp clutches, alternator, starter, wheel bearings sometimes survive depending on how good the seals are, driveshaft may take a dump in several months. i probably have whatever you need at the yard in denham springs or get it new/rebuilt 1-866-BMW-GUYS or 225-667-2600 8-5:30 m-f 9-1 sat

[winfred]

the relay/general module probably got wet and shorted, the locks run through both, i've seen some weird stuff fixing wet cars i meen **** like somebody is controling the car by remote with stuff comming on and off. as stuff gets wet and shorts out it starts draining the battery


dont know about the unlock feature but i guess you should clean em up and dry them out as soon as possible,as you do that you should find any other damage.How long were you away?It seems strange that boh batteries are dead.....