Texas flood car 2001 Boxster S

[Zky Captain]

So... I’ve caught the bug. I recently bought a super clean 2001 S and now I’ve gone and bought another, but this one was in the Harvey flood. It appears to have taken on water about half way up to the side vents. The car is BEAUTIFUL and I have to believe that the previous owner cried the day it was towed away. No attempt has been made to start the car. I bought it for the BBS factory wheels and was hoping that the litronic headlights will still work. Beyond that and a few other spares, I will put my wheels and lights with it and sell it off when I’m done. Note: salvage title.

Now the questions: 1. If the litronics got wet, any chance they will be salvageable? 2. Am I the dumbest idiot ever?

[RobertKing]

Originally Posted by Zky Captain

So... I’ve caught the bug. I recently bought a super clean 2001 S and now I’ve gone and bought another, but this one was in the Harvey flood. It appears to have taken on water about half way up to the side vents. The car is BEAUTIFUL and I have to believe that the previous owner cried the day it was towed away. No attempt has been made to start the car. I bought it for the BBS factory wheels and was hoping that the litronic headlights will still work. Beyond that and a few other spares, I will put my wheels and lights with it and sell it off when I’m done. Note: salvage title.

Now the questions: 1. If the litronics got wet, any chance they will be salvageable? 2. Am I the dumbest idiot ever?

Depends a lot on how long the car was that deep in water. Water, though necessary for life, is a corrosive and loves to eat metals and electronics. Pull the headlights and check for any sign of corrosion. If there, sorry, they're pretty much useless. Clearly, the immobilizer is trash at this point. Carpet and likely most electronics as well. BUT, there's a lot of still useful and valuable parts there. Lots of plastics and trim parts. You might be able to make back what you paid in parts sales.

[itsnotanova]

I buy lots of boxsters that were written off as flood damage. There's a big difference between a wet immobilizer and an actual flooded car. If the water made it up that high, then you might have gotten water inside the engine, transmission and exhaust. I've bought two that were that flooded or more. Surprisingly water did not make it into the transmission but they were both 6 speeds. 5 speeds and tiptronics might not be so water tight. The engines were another story. Both had about 5 gallons of emulsified oil/water in them. One of them I cleaned it out as good as I could and flushed it a few time with clean oil. I then put that 3.2 motor in my boxster and put 1000 miles on it. It ran great and had good compression before and after. I eventually took it back out to put a 3.4 back in my boxster. So what I'm getting at is that if you flush out the engine and or transmission quickly, you might be able to save them. I sold both flooded motors to an engine builder at a great price. He took them apart and said they looked beautiful inside with no damage. That's the good part about buying a flooded porsche. Electronics is another story. Anything and everything water could touch was shot. I guarantee your fuse block is majorly corroded. Even parts that were not touched by water got shorted out. That car you bought will be an electrical nightmare if you attempt to fix it up. You're best off selling it for parts or parting it out yourself.