Florida’s weather is known for its unpredictability, with sudden storms and heavy rains that can lead to flooding. This poses a significant risk to cars, as water can cause extensive damage to both the interior and exterior of vehicles. If you own a car and live in one of the many flood-prone areas in Florida, take preventative measures to protect your vehicles. In that spirit, let’s give you four good tips to prevent or deal with floods:
1. Mind the Paperwork
Before a storm hits, remove any car documents, insurance cards, personal possessions, and anything else you don’t want to lose. This includes exterior car accessories, like antennas, magnetic decals, and whatever fancy stuff you might have left behind in your car.
Take photos of your vehicle with date-tamps before the storm hits. You should include photos of all sides of the exterior and interior, the engine compartment, the interior of the trunk, and even your tires. These photos will serve as a record of your vehicle’s condition prior to any potential flood damage, and insurance appraisers (and your pocket!) will thank you for it.
2. Disconnect the Batteries
Disconnecting the battery is very much key to protecting your car during flooding. This can prevent electrical damage and avoid short circuits that could lead to potential fire hazards. If you must park your car outside during a storm, make sure to disconnect the battery and unplug any electronic devices.
After the storm has passed, check the battery for damage. Since there’s a lot that could go wrong with a car’s electronics through flooding damage, you might need to send it to a mechanic anyways, but you might be able to mitigate a lot of the potential damage.
3. Floodproof Your Garage
Dry floodproofing your garage is an effective way to prevent water from entering it. This involves sealing off any areas below the structure’s flood protection level using plastic or rubberized sheeting or special waterproofing compounds.
Aside from this, you can keep water getting in through the exterior walls and/or floors by sealing them with compounds that are applied directly to the surface of the structure, which will help it resist water penetration and might leave your garage dry as it can be.
4. Do Proper Post-Maintenance
If there was already a flood and you could not avoid it hitting your car, there’s still a lot you can do to protect your car. The most important thing is to, of course, carry out proper post-maintenance on your vehicle.
Dry your brakes: The first place that gets the most water is the tires and brake pads. Make sure you dry out your brake pads or buy new ones if yours are too damaged.
Do not start your car: If there’s water in the engine, starting it might cause more damage. Whatever you do, make sure you’ve done proper maintenance and have allotted enough time for your car to have dried up by now.
Dry up the interiors: Wet interiors cause an awful smell. You can dry it up by opening all doors and sunroof to let in the sun or use heaters and fans
Change all fluids in your car: Make some time to drain all fluids from your car since it’s most likely that water got mixed up with them. By this point, which could damage the car when starting.
It’s very much likely you will significantly reduce the risk of damage to your car during flooding events by following these 4 rules. Remember that preparation is key when protecting your vehicle from flood damage. If your vehicle troubles are more related to registering and documentation, contact us at Auto Tags of Florida, and we can help you get that solved easily!
