My car just broke down. It's raining real hard out here and as I came back from the local store. My car just stopped in the middle of the street and the streets are real flooded. Luckily there was a nice guy that pushed my car with his truck all the way home. So now my question is how serious is the problem?

 

your engine probably just stalled from water getting into your it

 

Sounds like the problem.

 

well is the problem serious? or is it fixable?

 

Maybe your plug wires are getting water in them. Happened to me on other cars. Kills the spark, not to bad for the car though.

 

Gonna have to let the car dry out. Best way to know if it was water is to take off your air filter and see if it is wet.

As for serious I cannot say. Redsuperchargedgirl had this problem on our last Edmonton meet, and all was well once it dried up fully.

 

Um.... our cars have no plug wires. But if it did get the top of the engine soaked it will need to dry out.

 

do you have OnStar? if you do call them and they will tell you what the issue is

 

so what should i do? just let it dry out? the car has no mods on it, engine is fully stocked 2.4L.

 

Take it to the dealer would be my first guess.

 

I have a 2.4 and I've damn near put it underwater before with no problems. It sounds like you may have hit a big puddle juuuust right. Let it dry out the rest of the day and see if it starts, if not call the dealer since it bone stock.

 

no onstar on my car, i just checked the air filter seems to be soaked and debris from the water is in there, and i was riding right in the middle of the street guess i was in the wrong place at the wrong time all cause wifey wanted some OJ :/

 

Does the car at least crank over?

 

i put the air filter back on took out all the debris from it, when i tried to start the car all you hear is a click sound like its completely dead, the battery is still working fine though radio and lights turn on

 

let it dry out for a day or two and call the dealership and deny everything! tell them you were driving ant it just quit. don't say anything about a puddle or rain or anything! if you tell them it was raining hard or you hit a pubble they will say you hydrolocked it and won't even look at it.

 

Could always try the battery disconnect for 30 mins and try again ? Best bet is to let it sit and dry, the car obviously didnt like the water much and is angry at ya!

 

well my friend is coming over to help me out to see what we can do, the rain has calm down, appreciate all the help here you guys reply real quick, i'll keep you guys posted to see what happens. thanks to all of you

 

I just hope you didn't hydro lock it... if so then it's terminal. but could be that the electrical system got a good soaking. how deep was the water?

 

well the dash is reading engine disabled and also engine power reduced, cant get the engine to crank, anyone know how i can bypass that?

 

Yup, call a tow truck and have it taken to the dealer. Your car should NOT just die from hitting a puddle, this is why you have a warrenty.

 

well turns out its the computer that locks out the engine, all we had to do is take off the battery and reset the computer, engine is now starting seems the starter might be wet so we are looking into that right now

 

Hope its ok man this sucks!

 

well here is the details, turns out the issue was the flywheel, looks like the flywheel has two teeth missing and so when the starter would start it would just grind on the gap where the two teeth are missing. i was speaking to my friend as what the cause of this might be, what we concurred was maybe with the water that got into the car and the heat of the starter and the water together might have cause the teeth to break. the flywheel is not cracked it's just the two measly teeth missing that wont start the car up, but anywho the car is still under warranty so tomorrow i will be contacting the dealer and have them take care of the issue we saw no other issue with the car. so word to the wise careful with flooded streets and just cause it looks shallow dont be fooled!

 

is this a 5 speed or automatic?

if it's a 5 speed try and bump start it (catch it in gear) and see if it fires

if it's a automatic try putting it in gear and pushing it and see if you can get the motor to turn alittle so it is past the broken teeth and then crank it over. I'm not sure if this will work but it may be worth a shot.

 

its 5 speed and yea we thought about that too but then i will be driving around thinking when might be the next time it catches that gap. thanks for the help though, appreciate it. so we'll see what my dealership tells me tomorrow.