As the waters recede from Houston, thousands of flooded cars will be aired out – and shipped out – to unsuspecting used car lots all over the country. Their titles as “washed” as their interiors (and the rest of them, too).
As OJ used to say – and will probably say soon again – look out!
Ideally, these flood-damaged unterseebooten would be written off as collateral damage of the hurricane. But when there’s a buck to be made, people will try to make a buck. What happens is as follows:
The cars – many of them brand-new – are declared total losses and the dealership gets compensated by the insurance company. The cars ought to be recycled at this point – or parted out (some parts are still perfectly usable). But because it is not hard – for the expert crooked car seller – to pull out the carpet, dry the obvious things, clean the car up and then (critical) efface any mention of “salvage” or “flood damage” from the car’s title/vehicle history report – and then sell the seemingly near-new/low-miles car far, far away from the source of its swim, he does exactly that.
And this is a ride you do not want to take.
It’s always been bad news for a car to take a dip. Water in places it’s not supposed to get to – like underneath the carpets and underneath the headliner and inside the trunk – generates both funk and rust. The car will smell moldy no matter what you do, unless you douse it with some overpowering other smell – which is common procedure with flood-damaged cars. Mask the funk with the nose hair-curling aroma of artificial patchouli. This, by the way, is a Danger! Danger! Will Robinson! olfactory warning that something is very wrong with the car you’re looking at.
After the…