Cat D due to flooded engine in deep water

[p1tse]

I've seen this car 56 plate (Say Jan07) , apparently a Cat D 2 years ago say estimate Jan 2009, so only 3 years ago. This was on a BMW rrp I would imagine be £36k+options and extras.

What I don't understand is why it was a Cat D if it was only water damage to the engine, apparently no water inside the car or any other damages.

The car would have still had a value of £20k, surely a new engine wouldn't have been more than 60% of the value?

New owner brought as non runner at auction, new engine sourced (apparently only had 3k miles on it), and done 30k with the the clock showing 50k for the action car.

So why would insurance would have written it off is beyond me

[v8will]

p1tse said:

So why would insurance would have written it off is beyond me

Too much liability 'if' water has affected elsewhere

[paintman]

If its been under water for any length of time you can write off most of the electrics.
Plus all the submerged wire joints will be affected & there may be considerable internal damage to the wires.

[p1tse]

obviously couldn't get a clearer pic third hand, but apparently the seller spoke to the original owners via the v5 details and had said it was due to a puddle, got to be a deep one at that then. Surely if it was a road puddle it would have been rescued out pretty quick.

this owner has had the new engine and driven 2yrs / 30k miles, would the extent of the original water problem still could have problems in the wires etc.?

to be honest i've always been adverse to cat d myself and probably won't be the car for me, but still interested to know the ins and out

[Jakg]

With water theres always the "if" risk.

A BMW is full of electric - and a fault code reader wont find a corroded connector. This makes it very difficult (and expensive) to find & repair any future problem. Plus, these problems can manifest themselves well after the original damage is repaired.

Because of this, insurers generally push to write off more cars due to flooding versus those damaged in normal incidents... it'll probably be fine, but if it's not, i'll be a nightmare.

[sjg]

Not uncommon on diesel cars, they tend to have low intakes to get the coldest air but the intake can end up submerged in a few inches of water. If that water gets sucked up into the (high compression) engine then they can fail horribly. A colleague had it happen in his Alfa 156 JTD in a puddle after some floods. Nowhere near high enough to cause damage elsewhere, but the engine was knackered.

If you add up the cost of all the various bits needed to fix, at main dealer parts desk prices, add the labour, and it's not hard to see why they get written off. Dropping in a secondhand engine isn't a big problem though - if the rest checks out and it's cheap enough (so cheap to not worry about the implications of cat D when you sell it on) then not a big deal really.

[p1tse]

thanks

the car in question is a 335d bmw, so i assume as you said BMW parts and labour for a 35d engine would be scary

i thought worth a punt if it was cheap enough, but still big money to me