alumar

Hey all...

So most of you are abrest to my C55 rebuild, which went very well. I should be picking that up next week.

But yesterday was a terrible day. So my father has owned a 1999 BMW M3 Conv. E36 black on black. The car is in AMAZING shape, just touching 49k miles. He decides to put it up for sale and since my C55 has been getting rebuilt, I felt like my daily driver (Ford F150) could be shelfed to the driveway and room made for this gem.

The car sports the inline-6 and has a perfect history and essentially was garage kept.

I take a day off of work and have my wife drive me to my fathers house about 300 miles away... I purchase the car and began my drive back to St. Louis. We roll up on a huge storm over Springfield IL wherein it begans to rain very hard. When we left my fathers house I decided to drive our new Nissan Quest minivan, with my 2 kids in it, and let my wife drive the M3.

We are just on the outskirts of Springfield, IL when this large and powerful storm starts to unleash hell as previously mentioned. Down another 2 miles I hit a large patch of water crossing the interstate (im talking 20" of water) wherin I almost get pushed off teh highway (mind you im going 25mph). My wife hits the same patch and begans to flash the lights on the BMW.

I pull over and she stalls just past the large river that is cossing the highway... I get out, getting drenched and push the car to the side of teh road...after the rain slows down I pop the hood and check the filter... the filter is SOAKEd with 2+ inch of standing water in the box, and the MAF sensor has a good 1/2 cup of water in it.

We call a wrecker and get it moved to Isinghauser (sp?) BMW/Mercedes today and I get the call its more than likely hydrolocked. Pulling of one sparkplug showed a good dose of water pour out of the engine...


More than likely it will get totaled, less than 2 hours after I just purchased it.... WTF!!!

mikekuriger

Did your dad mod the intake? I've never seen an stock intake that allows that much water in. Hopefully it's something that can be fixed easily!! (crosses fingers)

alumar

no, stock intake, the whole car is stock ... mind you this was nearly 2 FT of water a good 4 car lenghs in distance

mikekuriger

I have hydro locked a motor before but it didn't bend any rods. just pull the plugs, crank the motor over till the water sprays out, and change the oil. I don't know what kind of rods they use in the M3 but I'm pretty sure they aren't dinky

~mike~

14cue

Oh man, that sucks.
Sorry to hear. When it rains, it pours (no pun intended).

TruTaing

Ouch....

I dont even take my car into like... 5+ inches of water. 2feet? I would turn around, but thats just me.

Hopefully the kleemann will return soon and give ya many more smiles per mile.

alumar

Thats good to know that there is a possiblity its not a nail in the coffin for the car.

ZephyrAMG

I was outside when we had that storm yesterday. It was insane! Crazy lightening and thunder and really heavy rain... I think I even saw hail for a second...

I hope that it truly isn't totaled and that you are able to drain and repair. Keep us posted.

Phil C55

A few years ago my neighbor came over and asked if I could look at his Camry. He told me he had driven real slow through some deep water on the road from local flooding (just like yours). I told him I didn't need to look at it, that he had hydrauliced the motor and it was junk. I went ahead and went over to his house, opened the air box, and yep it had a bunch of water in it. I was right, water doesn't compress. His insurance co. bought him a new motor. (well actually used) Good luck, but it's probably junk.

mrobinso

ZephyrAMG your signature is scaring the s**t out of me.

ZephyrAMG

Me too. But thats how I look when I down shift. A mix between evil and happy.

alumar

They were able to flush it!!! Works like a champ after new sparkplugs, filter and MAF!

Tump43

Wow!!! Fantastic, by the time I got to the end of this tread I was ready to offer my sympathies, etc. but, no such luck! I am very glad your BMW has recovered and is fine. Enjoy. My auto body guy has one and loves it.

W203Ramos

John

Quicktwinturbo

Lovely

RLx02

Nice! Glad that it all worked out for you!

Chazz

I just love a happy ending!

Phil C55

That's great news , you dodged a serious bullet. Car looks nearly new, glad it turned out for you.

Quadcammer

glad to hear the car is working, but there is no way there was 2 feet of water running across the road and people were just driving through it.

If you hit that doing 60mph, you'd end up missing most of the front of the car.

rlddlr53

very nice m3!!! my girlfriend has a 99 m3 convertible, dakar yellow. She wants my c32 now

alumar

People were going 10-15mph through it and it was about 2.5 ft, video will be posted when I get back in town

FrankW

a major WTF indeed...

the one thing about E36 and/or E46 M3s is that for better breathing for the engine they decided to extend the airbox tube down the driver side to the lower part of the bumper and that basically acts like a suction tube when you go over standing waters. this is why i like the MB airbox better as they kept it high.

glad u got it working again

mikekuriger

good news!

lkfoster

You'd think they'd know better. SAAB learned not to do that way back in the '70s on their 99 cars that had a low-mounted intake. The lessons learned was to drill a hole at the top of the "snorkel" to break the suction.

Newzchspy

I take it you WERE THERE?

Have you ever experienced a Mid-West Rainstorm?

I think he said he was doing about 25 MPH