Signs of a drowned car

The simplest and only sure way to find a car after a lot of water is to buy it in Japan yourself. As a rule, transport is insured, therefore, when an insured event occurs, the company pays the owner the cost of the property and disposes of it at its discretion. More precisely, the insurance company sells the car “as is” by putting it up for auction. In this case, the lot may not be drivable, may have salt stains and a layer of dirt in the interior and under the hood. During the assessment, the trading house will definitely find out about the “wet” past of the recruit – his condition and the insurance company selling the car will tell about this.

You can quickly understand that you are being offered something suspicious by the low overall rating in the auction house: usually it is one – “1”, but it also happens that they give zero (0) or three snowflakes (stars) – “***”. Thus, the driftwood is placed on a par with old cars, victims of garage tuning, very rusty bodies and other junk. Often the above ratings are adjacent to the letter “R”, for example R1 or R-A – this means that the copy is still broken, but has been restored. By the way, “snowflakes” can also mark unrepaired damage, so you need to look at each such car more carefully and read the inspector’s comments.

Now we come to the most important thing. To make sure you don’t end up in trouble, you must translate all of the inspector’s comments regarding the evaluation of the lot. If there is a floating car in front of him, then on the auction sheet he will write the following: “沈没車.” The entry means “sunk car”. The specialist will not draw any waterlines on the body – this is not his business, since the car in any case is included in the ranks of outsiders and requires a price reduction.

Among the sunken cars there may be models of various brands and classes, with almost any mileage, including completely new cars that have traveled only a couple of thousand kilometers or have not even left the factory. Naturally, in the eyes of any buyer this is a tasty morsel, especially considering that the cost of such a “Japanese car” is one and a half to two times less than the market price.

Yes, there may be dirt and a layer of salt deposits on the body, and the interior may be scary with clay on the seats and rugs. But the body can be washed, polished, and the interior can be given a general cleaning. And then the car will look and feel like new – isn’t that the highest degree of happiness?

The first is the smell. Even dry cleaning and ozonation of the interior do not always cope with the problem. After all, we are not talking about moisture as such, but about mold. The fungus multiplies in body cavities and especially loves seat filling, trunk upholstery, insulation and sound insulation sheets, and the same felt. As a result, when you get behind the wheel, your nose should catch an unpleasant smell – there’s no getting around it. To make sure your guess is correct, you need to sit in the cabin alone for a minute, closing all the doors. True, the sellers know about this and try to perfume the car and hang everything with Christmas trees.

The second is rust. You need to look for the red coating in places hidden from view – under the seat, under the dashboard, behind the trunk trim – just run your hand and evaluate the cleanliness of your fingers. In the engine compartment, rust will appear on the fastenings of attachments and the radiator. The third is pure oil. Pull out the dipstick and check it for drops of water – the lubricant layer should be homogeneous and even. Listen to the engine running (if there is any strange noise).