Car stalled in middle of street, it was a short dip into deeper water just were a street had a low spot. She has been advised of this numerous times, but I guess jawing with her friend in the car overruled paying attention. When I got the call I felt like puking, even though she said "it wasnt that deep".

Anyways, get there and try and just turn it over once after pushing it out of the water. Doesn't do anything. I unhooked the CAI halfway up and it was damp which told me it sucked up water.

Next I pulled the fuel pump fuse, the coils and then the plugs and just turned the engine over with the starter. As cool as it looked I wasnt happy to see water shooting out of the top of the engine when it turned over. After a couple of turnovers it seemed all the water was pumped out. I put it all back together and cleaned what I could, had plenty of time it took the wrecker 2 hours to get there.

It turns over fine, just wont start and is at the dealer now. I explained to them why it stalled and what all I did, just hope the engine survived...

Car has 80k miles and is in great shape, so trade in is decent on it still. If the engine is trashed I have 4 options:

1) Let the dealer change the engine out (most costly)
2) Try and work a trade in with them (I owe $1500 on the so if they would payoff that loan I'd take it and just buy something new)
3) We know an engine guy that just replaced a rav4 engine for $1500 with a used one, so we could go that route
4) Best friend would buy it for what I owe, get the engine replaced, and give to his 15yr old.

I'm just ____ed man, I was fixing to write a check and pay the thing off...

Of course one can think the worse, maybe the engine isnt toast.

 

Damn it man... so close. I feel for you. That's way messed up. Especially since it wasn't you, that's even worse. She owes you big time something fierce.

Keep us posted none the less...

 

That absolutely sucks dude. Keep us posted on what happens? Did you happen to look at the plug electrodes when you pulled them? I have had a few "hydrolocked" engines where the water pressure literally bends the electrode causing no gap and no fire. Best of luck to you man.

 

ughhhh so sorry to hear that! 80k miles is nothing on these cars. I hope that this is an easy/cheap fix for you...

 

Strangely enough, none of the plugs were damp and looked OK. When I cycled it over a few times after the plugs were out, most of the water came from the cylinder most to the pass side, the other three werent as bad. and all were quickly cleared. I can hope that the engine died before major damage was done.

The part that sucks is I have several outs, but none of em would leave with a paid off scion at 80k...

If everything is OK, I'll surely get oil changed. The tranny was just serviced, any concern there? Water was not deep enough to get into dipstick, and that fluid was just done a few weeks ago.

 

OK. According to toyate, the engine is NOT damaged. The needs to replace a few gaskets, oil changes, new plugs, etc... to fix what was damaged. Looking around $1200 and the guy said insurance may cover it. I live in Mobile which is the rainiest city, or top 5 generally, in the country. The service guy said they 8-10 a month like this so it's nothing new for them. He did verify insurance covers part of it a lot of the time.

 

That's great! You lucked out, wife still owes you big.

 

Still waiting on claim person to show up out there and make it official, so it could still be a $1200 problem LOL. Better than used engine since I have 80k on mine, owned it since new, and it doesnt use a drop of oil.

Funny thing. A salesman from the dealership emailed my wife today and asked if we would be interested in bringing our 2009 xb in for an appraisal since they had great new car deals. I told her to reply and tell em to walk about and make me an offer LOL

 

They always do that. When they know what's wrong and to what extent, they will use that against you and price they give you. They feel they can justify a $2100 appraisal on sh.t like that alone. It's a joke. Just pass on that...

 

Oh yeah. I've bought enough cars in my day, I go in knowing what it's worth, minus a repair charge like that and that is what I expect. Anything less and they can kiss it.

Funny how salesman change when you get up and start to walk out. My wife got embarrassed before when I was walking out over $250 dollars. I told her it was my job to get the best deal for me, not the salesman.

 

You said man. They hate that sh.t because they know they need you.

 

Update.

After calls Mon, Tue and Wed, and 2 different claim adjusters being assigned, we finally got the claim agent out PM yesterday. At that point, toyota's stance was it might need an engine replacement because it sat for 6 days with water inside it (state farm would not let us flush and repair until they came out).

So, agent came out yesterday, seemed to be OK with accepting claim but said they wanted engine broken down a little more to see the inside. Toyota broke it down and video taped it all showing the water inside and they got deeper in. Agent will be back out tomorrow and then we should move forward.

I can assume they will go with a used engine, just not sure if it's procured by the dealer or state farm, and hopefully it'll be decent mileage. I also hope there is some sort of 12 month warranty on it, all details to be sorted out I guess.

 

Sounds a little better than before. Hopefully everything follows through OK.

 

Yeah, my only real concern now is what engine they are going to install and it's history.

 

See if they can purchase one from LKQ. They disclose mileage, what happened to the donor car, etc. They usually come with a 12 month warranty as well.

 

I am going to call the toyo guy in the AM and ask if they aquire the engine or state farm, and them go from there. But I'd hope for a 12 month, since I knew my engine, I do not know this one...

 

Talked to the guy at Toyota. They went out and located an engine, 60k miles and 12 month unlimited mile warranty.

That is pretty fair, I can find out if the engine is trash pretty quickly, or if there is an issue with it.

Plan was to let the wife drive this one to 100k, then Id take it as a work car and buy another, so we should still be ok.

 

Quote:

Financial Summary
Parts: $2,062.50
Labor: $1,904.95
Towing: $0.00
Other: $14.30
Total Estimate: $3,981.75
Less Deductible: $500.00
Net Total: $3,481.75

 

Hoo wee she got away with murder there didnt she?! Glad to hear its not as bad as expected. Financially that is.

 

Yepp, very lucky...