worried after driving thru flood water

Stoke

Nodding_Donkey wrote: »

Fromm the AA website

Driving fast through standing water is dangerous; tyres lose contact with the road and you lose steering control in what's known as 'aquaplaning'. If you do experience aquaplaning, hold the steering wheel lightly and lift off the throttle until the tyres regain grip.

Driving fast through standing water is inconsiderate. Driving through water at speeds above a slow crawl can result in water being thrown onto pavements, soaking pedestrians or cyclists. You could face a hefty fine and between three and nine penalty points if the police believe you were driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.

Driving fast through standing water can cause expensive damage. The air intake on many cars is low down at the front of the engine bay and it only takes a small quantity of water sucked into the engine to cause serious damage. All engines are affected but turbo-charged and diesel engines are most vulnerable.

20-25mph is not slow.

Final point of that AA thing is totally incorrect. It takes a hell of a lot of water, a continuous non-vaporized stream in fact, to hydrolock an engine.

vaio

facade wrote: »

Sorry to be pessimistic, but

As it is a peugot, have a look under the bonnet and see if it has put a rod through the side of the engine. The little pugs will hydraulic lock, but at speed the con-rod snaps and comes out the side of the block.

They will run merrily, if a little rough, on 3 cylinders until they run out of oil..........

I like the description of a car with a rod through the block as "running merrily, if a little rough". I've only ever seen one and would have gone with "undrivable accompanied by really loud noise with lots of banging and clattering plus clouds of oil smoke"

As the OP did an uneventful 15 miles after the trip though the flood I'll stick with post #2

vaio wrote: »

The big danger is you suck in water and hydrolock the engine but you'd have noticed that already so my vote goes to "don't worry, no damage done"

AdrianC

Stoke wrote: »

Final point of that AA thing is totally incorrect. It takes a hell of a lot of water, a continuous non-vaporized stream in fact, to hydrolock an engine.

Mmmm. Yes and no.

All it takes is a cylinder to ingest enough water to not allow the piston to reach top dead centre of the congestion stroke.

On a 1.6 litre, four cylinder engine, each cylinder is nominal 400cc capacity. With a compression ratio heading towards 25:1, perfectly normal for a diesel, that means that as little as 20cc of water - four teaspoons - in any one cylinder will cause the engine to hydraulically lock.

But another vote here for "You'd know immediately if there was any serious internal damage". Not even the least mechanically sympathetic person could drive it home afterwards.

Stoke

AdrianC wrote: »

Mmmm. Yes and no.

All it takes is a cylinder to ingest enough water to not allow the piston to reach top dead centre of the congestion stroke.

On a 1.6 litre, four cylinder engine, each cylinder is nominal 400cc capacity. With a compression ratio heading towards 25:1, perfectly normal for a diesel, that means that as little as 20cc of water - four teaspoons - in any one cylinder will cause the engine to hydraulically lock.

But another vote here for "You'd know immediately if there was any serious internal damage". Not even the least mechanically sympathetic person could drive it home afterwards.

I will take a punt and say if you put 4 teaspoons of water down your air intake, it would vaporize and therefore by the physics of water injection be passed through the other side. Maybe I'll take a risk and have a go? :P

facade

vaio wrote: »

I like the description of a car with a rod through the block as "running merrily, if a little rough". I've only ever seen one and would have gone with "undrivable accompanied by really loud noise with lots of banging and clattering plus clouds of oil smoke"

Undriveable = wheels will not go round any more.

Rod through side of Pug 106 = a bit more noise and smell than usual :rotfl:

(Trust me, I know someone who drove quire some distance like it)

AdrianC

Stoke wrote: »

I will take a punt and say if you put 4 teaspoons of water down your air intake, it would vaporize and therefore by the physics of water injection be passed through the other side. Maybe I'll take a risk and have a go? :P

If you put four teaspoons down the intake, they won't all necessarily go in to just one cylinder, or even on just one revolution.

But - if they did... Fluids are incompressible.

Stoke

AdrianC wrote: »

If you put four teaspoons down the intake, they won't all necessarily go in to just one cylinder, or even on just one revolution.

But - if they did... Fluids are incompressible.

Very true, but don't forget, carb cleaner is a fluid, and isn't compressible. How do people get away spraying entire cans of that !!!! down without knackering their engine? The same rule, water injection. Google it. It's based on science, not some muppet in his backyard who puts big exhausts on Fiat Punto.

Gloomendoom

AdrianC wrote: »

If you put four teaspoons down the intake, they won't all necessarily go in to just one cylinder, or even on just one revolution.

But - if they did... Fluids are incompressible.

To be pedantic, fluids may be compressible... liquids are not.

Gloomendoom

Stoke wrote: »

Very true, but don't forget, carb cleaner is a fluid, and isn't compressible. How do people get away spraying entire cans of that !!!! down without knackering their engine? The same rule, water injection. Google it. It's based on science, not some muppet in his backyard who puts big exhausts on Fiat Punto.

Because carb cleaner is as volatile as petrol so it turns into a compressible vapour, just like the liquid petrol does.

colino

Of course carb cleaner, if you thought about it, instead of just using it for your argument, flashes off readily and isn't a fluid when it gets into the engine, but then again 1600cc is the capacity, or swept volume of the bores, not the entire free space in an engine.
Either way, unless its an emergency, you don't take modern cars swimming, if they don't ingest it and wreck the engines, their many electronics are just looking for a way to check out early.