scooby_si

Just wondered kuz driving back home thru sum country type roads it had & was totally lashing down thunderstorm stylee & had been for a while. Few cars were turning round infront due to the fact road had flooded up front & there was a car stuffed in the middle of da wet road erm river now i guess! Anyhow managed 2 about turn & find alternative route which was still DAMN wet but even while driving along A5 it was impossible 2 drive safely at any speed even when duel carrageway every1 was driving down middle due 2 the rest of it being in river mode. Bit surprised 2 then see a black 5 door scooby alongside me!?!?! I aint saying i drive like a saint but those were no conditions 2 b doing any overtaking so must say first time i've flashed a scoob in anger not thru admiration at having similarly gr8 taste in cars
Anyway that aside pretty hairy conditions so out of interest, & i hasten 2 add i woodn't wana try it in anything other than desperate times, but how deepa water kud u theoretically drive thru in a scooby b4 potentially hitting trubble? & Wot's the worst conditions u've ever found yerself behind wheel in, i mean i've hit patches of black ice etc in other cars but this wos probably the most full on non short lived driving situation
Si (still in luv with his toyo's & safe driving)

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Guess this might be considered a bit wet

KenG

Nothing compared to Leeds today, even Noah would have been impressed. Only took me two and a half hours for a five mile drive home tonight! However, very impressed with the STI's wet handling...

Ken

STI MAN

It's the best car I've driven in foul weather, especially on roads with pools of water.

My previous front wheel drive car was very sketchy when the driven wheels were driven through water >1" deep. The scoob in the same situation just ploughed through.

Spec

Sorry but thats dry. Today I drove in the worst conditions I've know since passing my test in '89. Absolute torrential rain, so heavy I can't really express how bad it was. The local news tonight was talking of months worth of rain in a couple of hours, real freak stuff. The roads in town were PROPER flooded, real 1st gear stuff and keep going! I was in a hurry to get home cos our basement kitchen was flooding. The water was coming up out of the sink and gushing up out of the outlets for the washing machine. And we live on a hill. If I'd been in anything that wasn't four wheel drive I'd have been terrified. I came up the street at approx 30 mph and the force of the water coming down was such that the spray was going over the parked cars. The previous worst conditions were getting to work in the snow and charging through drifts up the lane to work (and getting through them)

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

OK - so I'm a lightweight



It was on track though & I was only passed by 3 things in the whole day - 1xEVO, 600BHP race car & Turbo Porche (that span after doing so )

RON

I went through ford (of the river variety) recently, and the water came right up over the bonnet, didn't know quite what to expect, but it's still going, so I guess it ain't broke!

Moles Dad

Coming back from Pirbright Barracks last year (year before), It had been raining for hours (thunder storms), as I got down one of the little lanes there were cars and vans all over the place with bonnets up etc...I kept going only to find a river had burst and FILLED the dip under a small rail bridge

Couldnt go back, there were 4 million people behind, so I very slowly with high revs entered the water trying to create the well known offroaders bow-wave....in we went UP TO THE WINDOW LINE!

(Diesel Vectra) Dagga dagga phutt...dead, oh **** [panic]
Tried to start, nothing except bubbles
Took my foot off the clutch and wound it out on the starter, as soon as the exhaust was clear it fired up and off I went

Would never have gone into the water in my scoob!

FLAT ERIC

iTrader: (1)

Brand new Volvo estate stranded in flood water.Pulled out by Landie.Guy opens passenger door & as in cartoons,water pours out till it levels off with top of sills.Soon to be seen in Exchange & Mart methinks. One carefull if slightly damp owner.

David_Wallis

KenG....

Where in leeds are you??

InnerRingRoad Closed
OuterRingRoad Flooded by sainsburys / homebase..
Gledhow Valley Road Close
Claypit Lane / Sheepscar Junction All four lanes solid...



Never seen rain that bad in all my 22 years

David

JASON H

Had a 306 dts filled the engine full of water and locked it solid
AA man turns up speculates that the engine is completely fcuked and towes me to my dads house.
Next day my dad took the heater plugs out turned the engine over it fired jets of water everywhere,changed the oil and did 90k miles in her

scooby_si

So much talk of loss of pull when it's hot etc so how much BHP u loose when yer bonnets underwater? lol
Si

nigelward

All of them if the engine ingests water , unless your lucky of course.

We were lucky down here, only just starting to get some rain but it isn't torrential.

Toerag

Friend of mine drove a 205 diesel into a swollen river and hydrolocked the engine. 2 broken rods, 2 bent rods and 3 holes in the block! DOH!

JonW

Scooby intake is in front wing isnt it? once it fills up the intake box the engine will drag it in as it causes a vacuum... you cant keep going thru water forever or the sub in subaru would be for submarine....

{story mode}
Was doing a Classic rally in the Cotswolds back in mind 90s in mk3 Spitfire and went thru lots of shallow fords and all was well, I was racing a similar red mk3 and we came up to a larger ford and I went for it knowing he'd slow down... I didnt see the phototgrapher until it was too late - you always get spectators at the exciting bits and I should have slowed. I powered into the water and the front wheel dragged water straight into my huge K&N filters and with throttles open it went immediately into the engine which I'd only just run in after a full rebuild. The engine stopped dead and momentum took me thru the water.
'Helpful' people kept telling me to try and restart it but I decided to wait until a passing team could lend me a plug spanner. eventually my friendly mk3 owner nipped home a few miles and got one. with the plugs out I ran the starter and water pumped all over the onlookers ;-) once the water was out, plugs went back in and I finised the event much to most peoples amazement. A quick oil change later and youd have never know it had happened...

{/story mode}

chiark

Yesterday was worst rain I've ever driven through. i was lucky to get home in 1 1/4 hours for the 6 miles I do then . Took every different route possible tho...

The closing of the leeds inner ring road *really* buggered it all up.

In answer to the second question, do DO NOT want water in the engine. It doesn't compress, so something has to give. Namely your engine. The standard intake is in the driver's side wing, so don't fill that

Nimbus

About spring time I was taking my car in for a service. Just before I hit the town, there a stretch of road that goes down a dip with a stream at the bottom. It had been raining most of the day. On the way to the garage the flood was not too bad, but still covered the whole road (the middle bit of the camber was just under water.

On the way back though, it was very deep and a few cars had stalled. I waited to see if I could judge the depth by the ones brave enough to go through (and the ones stuck ). The onese behind me were turning around, but some of the on-comming ones tried it. I saw one car come through far too fast. When they emerged their number plate was hanging off and rubbing on the ground LOL. I thought it looked do-able, so waited for the next car to come through. Unfortunaly just as they got to the deepest part they stalled. I thought I should do the gentlemanly thing and so I slowly drive through, stopped opposite the stranded car and asked if she needed any assistance. Luckly she had a mobile and was call for help. I drove on (high reves, low speed) and gave the brakes a good working out. Not sure how deep it was, but the scooby coped v well.

Paul78

As long as you keep the revs up and slip the clutch so you've got a lot blowing out the exhaust generally it should be able to take quite a bit.

YorkshireSimon

Try 6 hours to drive 220 miles from Basingstoke back upt north last night....

Admittedly, roads in south were dia due to M25 being closed all day.

And then, a rear wheel tyre blow out not too far from Prodrive factory on M40, meant that I had to do another 140 miles at 50mph on a space saver wheel. Not much fun at all....

So if you saw an MY02 STi Prodrive WR Blue travelling like a slug in the first lane of the M40/M42/M1, tis was me....

Tell you what is really scary, driving on the inside lane where the trucks sink the road into drooves, full with water from the rain, driving a car with a 3" wide wheel on, for the best part of 3 hours. Challenging to say the least....

YorkshireSimon

YorkshireSimon

oh and...

it's amazing how many scoobs you see on the road when you are driving at a max speed of 50mph....

Funny I thought...

Simon

Jerry*

Guys,

Yup, have to agree it was some of the worst rain I have ever seen !!

I couldn't believe how we went from being bone dry and dusty up here in Leeds to being completely flooded within about 30 minutes !!

Sounded like Lord of the Bleedin' Dance goin' on on the office roof !!

Up here in Yeadon at Schofields it was as dark as night, cars had the full beams on (and some numpties with fogs too), and the car park was full of deep water within minutes ! I thought it might even wash Rum's stickers off it was that heavy !!

Lightning and thunder like someting off the telly..

Some of the most amazing weather I have ever seen...the Yorkshire Post described it as "a rainstorm of biblical proportions" !!

Weird stuff !!

today its just grey and wet... same as June I suppose...

Alpine

I thought one of the things you had to be careful of in deep water was the cat. Not just water getting inside the pipe but the thermal shock of very cold water on the cat knacking it up... Thought I read that somewhere but happy to be wrong...

Brendan Hughes

Bugger the cat. Get water in the air intake and watch your engine explode was what I was always told. Having drowned our poor Land Rover in a river in Mongolia many miles from home with the Camel Trophy organisers, I was told we got off quite lucky. Didn't stop them from drowning their own a few miles further on

With a diesel engine, fit a hi-lift snorkel and you can drown the engine, provided the exhaust doesn't flood. With a petrol engine, try the same trick and you will probably short the electrics.

Of course, check what's under the water before you drive through it - unexpected craters in the riverbed can be quite scarey, I assure you (see tale above)

BJH

DanTheMan

Being a white van man has its plus points, one being excellent ground (water) clearance, have sent metre high bow waves over abandoned cars last year when everywhere was under 1-2 ft of water.....
also had my motorbike exhausts under water (feet on handlebars) but kept the revs up and survived, could have waterskid with the pillion