For future reference, sucking water into the motor can be fatal for the
motor. This is not something that is new. The term of this is hydrolock.
Water does not compress as the piston rises, the resulting solid block that
forms between the top of the piston and the bottom of the cylinder head can
cause any number of horrible things to happen. Typically, a connecting rod
will break.

When you drive into water and make a splash that washes over the hood, there
is an air pocket around the engine intake, but if the water is deep enough,
when the pocket collapses water can get sucked into the motor. If the motor
is spinning slowly at that point, it may only stall out due to the intrusion
of water, but if the motor is cranking at a high speed then the solid block
of water will do serious damage. It you are lucky, the distributor gets wet
and stalls the motor before any serious damage can result. Of course, at
that point water is high enough to seep in around the doors and soak the
carpets, but that can be dried.

in all my 70's celicas i had, i used to blast through floods, hell the water
was higher than my car with the spash...theres a couple of road sin
Sheffield that always flood, ones under a bridge in a dip, i always went
through it, the other cars had to goto the middle of the road slow, and
still conk out, i used to just keep going, only problem i had, was the force
on the streering wheel, or if i forgot to shut the window...

good fun....

You are supposed to know that driving in deep water is bad.

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???