Team-BHP - How would you save your car if its parking spot is slowly flooding up?

The tarpaulin idea looks good, I wish I had seen that earlier. My Baleno got submerged till floor level only. We visited the service center & they say Maruti has instructed them to replace parts & not repair them. So as my car had submerged till floor level, they are saying the insurance cost might run up to a lakh.
There is another Baleno at their service center currently & it had submerged until dashboard level & the insurance cost for that car is going around 3 lakhs!

Service center says that the carpet, steering rack, ABS & air bag sensors/unit might need replacing. I'm also worried about the fungus, mold, hope they change the carpet & clean everything properly. Quiet worried now.

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Originally Posted by manishmk (Post 4264029)

It is not Maruti's instruction to change all required parts. It is the service centers decision to take advantage of the hapless customers and make a quick buck

I think there is a lesson too for those who are living in multi-story apartments with basement parking.

Wherever possible, get your parking allotted at the Stilt (The space between the pillers on the ground floor), and not on the basement - as basement is more prone to flooding.

Quote:

Originally Posted by manishmk (Post 4264029)

The tarpaulin is good indeed, I have small thought based on the tarpaulin idea, what if we had a very good water proof car cover and wear it like the underpants for the car? That is keep the cover on the ground and drive your car in and pull it up and tie it up with small ropes. Worth the investment? Also Maybe buy a size larger:) A Honda city :D waterproof cover for an amaze?

I have no idea about the cost aspect here and this is also not a permanent solution.

If you are living in an apartment kind of a setup, one option is car storage pooling. 4-5 residents can pool and hire those huge trucks which transport cars to showrooms. Cost will be divided and one can get a good deal as well with collective bargaining. The downside is that these trucks are parked only on highways or certain yards considering their size.

People with individual houses, who can cough up a few thousands can also opt for this if the number of cars at nature's mercy makes sense to go with this solution.

Superb thread @GTO. We live in a low lying area and I get perplexed whenever it starts raining heavily. I usually keep a check on the water level and when it goes above a feet or so I move the vehicles to a higher spot outside the garage, though it becomes a pain accessing them wading through the dirty water. Major problem is when we are out of town. Next time onward it will be a better idea to leave the keys with the neighbor so that he can move the vehicles in our absence. It is high time to keep a good rapport with the neighborhood Dada :D

I wonder how electric cars will take to floods.Considering they will not have a exhaust and an air Intake and assuming manufacturers would provide sufficient insulation to protect drive train from water,I guess it would be a lot easier to live with electric cars as compared to than petrol/diesel ones.This is another Thumbs Up for the electric cars.

Meanwhile, this gentleman takes his car inside the house to protect it rl: rl:

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Mai-Lee Acea is nothing if not a doting wife. When her husband asked if he could get his vintage car into the house ahead of Hurricane Irma, she dutifully replied, “Yes, no problem, babe.”

There was just one tiny condition: He had to figure out how to wedge it in through the sliding glass doors of their Hialeah townhouse. The home doesn’t have a garage.

For Mai-Lee, it was the perfect plan. She’d get some points for feigning “compromise,” a skill the local couple, married since 2012, have been working on since stints on reality TV shows “Bridezilla” and “Marriage Bootcamp” on We TV.

“We are always arguing, so we’ve learned a lot of compromising techniques during our marriage,” she said. “But I never thought he would do it — it was a joke. That was the compromise.”

The joke, it turned out, was on her.

As Mai-Lee was upstairs Friday evening, Tomas Acea was downstairs dismantling the sliding glass doors that lead to their living room, making just enough space to squeeze in his dark red Datsun 300ZX, a 1987 model he has been restoring for two months.

In a video Mai-Lee posted on Facebook, she walks in on her husband and brother-in-law taking apart the glass doors.

A lesson learnt the hard way.

Always park your car so that it's easy to make a quick getaway by simply driving away without any gear changes.

I have always parked my car nose first in our compound and driven out in reverse. This practice cost me an additional 4k in repairs when my car got flooded with 3-4inches water inside.
On 29th Aug, when water started rising rapidly, the exhaust pipe of my Chevy Beat was submerged, but, water had not reached engine/air intake height. To take the car to higher ground, I had to drive out of the compound in reverse, release my foot off the accelerator briefly, engage first gear and then drive forward.
I guess as soon as I released my foot off the accelerator and the revs dropped, water gushed into the exhaust pipe and damaged the lambda/oxygen sensor.

If I had parked the car in reverse, I could have just driven out in first gear maintaining adequate revs so that the escaping exhaust gases prevent entry of flood water.

Since that day, I have now started parking in reverse at home and office so that in case of any kind of emergency, I can quickly get in and get away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 4268475)

Meanwhile, this gentleman takes his car inside the house to protect it rl: rl:

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Hi GTO,
Did you implement any protection for your cars this year, as the rains in Mumbai are really bad and incessant. If you did, can you please share the methods you used, as it may help a lot of other owners who are facing flooding.

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Originally Posted by Behemoth (Post 4426856)

Did you implement any protection for your cars this year, as the rains in Mumbai are really bad and incessant.

Going to redo the driveway; at that time, I'm thinking of raising only the parking spot by 1 - 1.5 feet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 4427401)

Going to redo the driveway; at that time, I'm thinking of raising only the parking spot by 1 - 1.5 feet.

Will this height be enough, if you are building a ramp plan for as high as possible. Infact i would say even a temp (read mobile) steel ramps would also be a good idea. Can be pushed on to the side when not needed and can hold some flower pots. i.e if your drive way has width.

The easiest solution i can think of, If it is at home, is,
First, anticipate such rain and purchase a suction pipe with 10 meters of inlet pipe and 10 meters of outlet pipe.

we can have this suction pump to suck the water building up in the garage and drain it out to drainage sewage line.

I may be thinking too theoretical since there are few complexities as well. Hence, making some assumptions.
1. Power is available continuously to pump out the water
2. Water in the garage is not too contaminated to damage the pump