My wife drove her 99 Taurus throught some deep water yesterday and the car died when she was going through it. Couldn't start the car at all last night or this morning. Took it to my mechanic and he tells me that the air intake is below the engine and it had swallow a ton of water. Have you guys/girls ever had this problem. Let me know what to do. The mechanic even said I might have to get a new motor .Thanks

 

Yeah, we owned a rambler that was completely buried under water (flood).

Don't try to start the vehicle (as if it might start anyway LOL) as the starter motor may still turn the engine and damage it due to hydrolock. The rambler was a simple motor because it did not have all the cool sensors and components that we have on our modern vehicles. I removed all the sparkplugs and turned the engine over by hand to get water out of the cylinders. I think I left the spark plugs out for a few days to dry out the cylinders. A syphon unit would be handy. It took be another 3 days before I could even get the motor to start to take off but I finally got it running again. I also had to change the oil and replace fluids that were not in sealed systems. Your axles have breather hoses and might have to be drained and re-filled if the water was higher than the axles breather tubes. The transfer case and transmission might have tubes also.

Its no fun, but it is a challenge!

Oh, your engine was running when it got water in it. Oops. The engine may have got water into the cylinders while it was running and hydrolocked. Hydrolock can cause serious engine damage.

http://www.prepsparkplugs.com/hydrofact.htm