How to spot flood-damaged vehicles

(InvestigateTV) — CARFAX reported that Hurricane Milton added as many as 120,000 flood-damaged vehicles in Florida and that’s on top of the estimated 138,000 vehicles flooded by Hurricane Helene.

Thousands of these vehicles may already be up for sale. They often get cleaned up by scammers to be sold nearby, or even thousands of miles away.

CARFAX Editor-in-Chief Patrick Olsen said unsuspecting buyers end up with a vehicle that could have major problems down the road.

“There are two important things to do, one is to go to carfax.com/flood and plug in the vehicle identification number,” Olsen said. “We can tell you if a car has ever been labeled as flooded or salvaged or totaled. And even if the car gets moved from state to state to do what we call title washing, it will still follow that vehicle identification number through its life on CARFAX.”

Olsen said the second thing to do is get a trusted mechanic to look at any car of interest.

“Look for wet upholstery and carpeting, of course, but also look for mismatched upholstery and carpeting,” he urged. “That’s a telling sign. Look for rusted odd places. And that means the hood latch or the trunk latch. Look at the brake pedal and the gas pedal. Also, if there is rust on them, that suggests that the water rose up to that level.”

He explained that water and electricity don’t play well together so look for brittle wires underneath the dash. Also, if there is mud in the glove box or in the top of the engine bay, that’s a sign of a flood car. 

Finally, he said to check the engine oil. If it’s cloudy or milky, that might suggest there’s water in the engine.