Hydrolock?

Hydrolock is when the air intake for the Gas engine fills with water and the engine will stall when the water gets into it. It can be very costly to repair.

 

3" of water shouldn't be a problem.

 

On the way home from work this week I had to pass through roughly 12" of water due to flooding across the highway. I did not have a problem with this, other than being a little worried until I finally made it through.

 

When I've driven through 5-7 inches of water, the only issue I had is the Under Bumper plastic deflectors being pulled back, causing them to scrape the road, my tire, and eventually get ripped off the front of the car.

 

i'd take it really easy through water in the prius. i'm a little afraid of getting water into the electrical components.

 

People that speed through standing water and make a wake are morons! They usually are driving plain, white pickup trucks with no accessories or options. Those are the people who need to get hydrolock. Or even hydrophobia!

 

The car will typically come to a dead halt in a 'true hydrolock.' Your car sucks in air through the air filter and input into the engine in combination for combustion inside the engine.

When it sucks in water instead of air obviously water is not combustible so the water floods the engine cylinders and comes to a halt.


I posted a post about this and it is very funny when it happens to someone assuming it is not you.


A true hydrolock will stop your car completely, sometimes you can get 'a little' water in and still be fine, but completely submerging the car and you are going to have a very expensive problem.

 

I am finding it increasingly hard to believe that mwok86 is not a troll.

Look at his other posts, including two about whether he's causing damage to his car flooring it (yes, he really asked--and twice), and another whether using the brakes in an emergency maneuver will damage them. Now he's asking if driving it in the rain is bad for it.

 

And the answer is a unanimous yes. If you drive the Prius in the rain your penis will shrink and go inside out (not good).

 

More importantly, water is not compressible.

 

That's okay. The cylinder heads or connecting rods will make up the difference.

Tom

 

Haha, yes, I was in a car that ended up with two nicely curved con rods.....

 

lol. good one tom

i've been through heavy flooding. i was speeding through it too.

after the puddle the engine stalled and my battery SOC started to drop... i pulled over immediately and turned the car off. i power cycled it about 20 or so times before the ICE would turn on (just enough to hear/feel the initial turning and firing of the ICE) it immediately went to full rpm for the ICE and the SOC started to climb slowly...

i'm not sure if water was in the ICE or if the ignition coils simply got soaked.

this was over 50k miles ago.

 

Was Superdrol right, then...?

I have always carried a tarp in my prius and when it starts to rain I just stop on the side of the road and quickly cover it all up and bungee the tarp to itself snaking the bungee under the car. Sometimes I'll stand out for hours in the rain but I'm ok with this because I know the Prius isn't getting wet.

 

Hydrolock occurs when water is introduced into the combustion chamber of the ICE usually through the air intake. Water, of course, does not compress like the fuel/air mixture, and damage occurs rapidly. Valve trains, connecting rods and crankshafts bend and break under the tremendous mechanical pressures of the rotating mass of the engine. Usually the rear cylinders go first.

Hydrolock almost always occurs from driving through deep water. If you're building a wave in front of the vehicle as you move forward you're probably in deep enough water to suck some into the air intake. It' doesn't take as much water as you'd think to cause a lot of expensive damage. It just doesn't make sense to me to drive through water more than about 3" deep, and it's very hard to estimate water depth from the drivers seat.

The good news is most hydrolock damage is covered under the comprehensive road hazard insurance.

Bo