Tell you what? That you're driving a car and not a boat?

It's simply not true that all older cars had the air inlet on the top -
those with side draught carbs like SUs often had them on the side. But
they would and did sustain the same damage if the water got into the inlet.

Fuel injection cars have a very much better designed inlet tract - and
this often means siting the intake fairly low and to the front to get the
coldest possible air into the engine. You reap the benefit of this with
better performance and fuel economy.

I doubt a warning in the handbook about the maximum depth of water would
have much effect. How are you going to measure it? Of course some cars
might get through a foot of water while others don't. A Land Rover might
be able to cope with several feet.

Due to the recent downpours we have had there has been lots of flooding
country wide. Unfortunately I drove my 6 month old BMW 335d Coupe into
such a flood. Other cars were passing through it and once my turn came I
atempted to go through the flood about 1foot high. My car stopped dead
about 5m into the flood and I phoned BMW emergency who took my car to a
dealer. I have since found out that the engine as been wrote off along
with turbo's and intercooler and the bill is above 15k to repair the car.
At the BMW garage they have had above 10 cars this week with the same
problem and my friend who is the head mechanic at the local Mercedes
garage has had over 40 with the same problem. Apparently the water goes
through the air intake into the engine prevents the piston compressing and
then the con rods go through the engine sides. What I cannot understand is
why do they not tell you this? If you new the damage that could be done no
one would attempt to go through floods. The other thing is this is a modern
car problem as older cars air intake was on top off the engine and no such
damage ever ocurred. I am covered by my insurance but have obviously got
to pay my excess. I feel this is a scam by the car manufacturers and
dealers because there must be a way of preventing this from happening but
its obviously not in there interest to prevent it as the income that it
generates for the garages is an income paid by the insurance. I.e free
turnover! I would just like someone who as expierenced this or nows more
about it to enlighten me as to why this is happening???