Insurance Times reported this week that all the rain we’ve been having could result in the used car market being flooded with swamp damaged cars.
The original source of this shocking claim turns out to have been a press release from Alcoholics Anonymous, whose insurance director Douglas Simons claims formerly inundated cars are likely to have problems with things like worn brakes, rusty bearings, and malfunctioning paralytic converters. “Airbags might go off unexpectedly,” Doug warns gravely.
The sudden and torrential downpours experienced by many motorists and householders over recent days, have literally deluged many parts of the UK with prolonged and often extreme wetness, leaving a swathe of insidious and persistent dampness in their wake.
AA claims to have ‘dealt with’ over 80 cars ‘ruined’ by wetness in a single week, equating to a daily toll of over 10 vehicles. And this could be just the tip of the flood waters, with a suspected 2,720 more cars ‘ruined’ but not ‘dealt with’ by AA. The fear now is that some of these water-ruined cars could fall into the hands of unscrupulous dealers who will simply wring them out, stick them under a hand-dryer for a couple of hours, and then flog them on to unsuspecting punters.
Meanwhile anyone buying a second hand car from a private seller in the current climate should check carefully for signs that the vehicle may previously have been suffused in a cocktail of river water and sewage. Tell-tale signs include murky puddles in the spare tyre well, soggy seats, cockpit condensation, mayonnaise inside the oil filter cap, dead fish in the glove compartment, and a generally putrid stench like the week-old cadaver of a dog fed exclusively on cod liver oil.
Any of these could indicate that the vehicle has previously been in contact with water and is hence a lethally fatal deathtrap of the kind to be avoided at all costs – even by those equipped with unusually lengthy bargepoles.
One careful owner
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