Scores of vehicles suffer damage due to heavy rain, flooding

Mangaluru: The city is gradually recovering from the shock of heavy rains whose aftermath has kept scores of car and two-wheeler service centres busy. Service centers across the city are facing a flood of vehicles into whose engines, water entered and got damaged. Tuesday’s deluge has inflicted partial or total damage on an estimated 400 cars.

Many cars could be seen being towed to service centres on Wednesday and Thursday after they has suffered damage due to water entering their engines.“It is estimated that nine hours of continuous rain damaged over 400 cars, most of which are hatchbacks and sedans. So far, our service centre itself received around 105 cars, and queries are still coming in in this regard,” said a manager of a leading car brand showroom here.

Since it is the first time they are facing such a problem in the city, they are collecting inputs from places which faced such a deluge in the past, like Chennai. Even insurance companies are holding emergency meetings to discuss how to assess losses and disburse compensation to damaged vehicles under legal norms, informed the manager of another car showroom.

Some car and motorbike showrooms have categorised the damaged vehicles into A,B and C catagorey based on the extent of damage. A category vehicles are those which got damaged due to being completely submerged, B category refers to partially submerged vehicles and C category vehicles are those which were submerged up to the level of the wheel or bottom of the door, explained a top executive from a car brand.

if a car owner tries to start a car into whose engine water has entered, and move it, they are at a high risk of damaging their vehicle due to a phenomenon known as ‘hydrostatic locking’, pointed out the executive. According to sources this is not covered under the ‘engine protection’ clause in different car insurance policies.

“Disbursal of insurance settlement for other categories of vehicles damaged will be disbursed according to the policy of the respective insurance company, and case by case settlement will be done, where the engine protection clause has been opted for. This is a first-time situation as far as the Dakshina Kannada district is concerned. So, a lot of data is being collected regarding past examples of a similar nature, to give proper and decisive settlement of claims,” said the executive.

To repair a vehicle which suffered damage due to water entering the vehicle the engine has to be thoroughly cleaned after dismantling it, and the aggregates inspected for any future problems.

“The brake liners, clutch plate and pads get bloated due to being immersed in water over a period of time. The electronics in present-day or new generation cars may start acting up over time, due to the contaminated water affecting the various couplers, junctions, wiring harnesses and their ports, due to slow corrosion. This may not show up immediately though. These are some of the risks that car owners need to understand. It’s a Herculean task, to repair such vehicles and a thankless job for vehicle service centres,” observed an executive.