How to spot a flood-damaged car before you buy

How do you spot a flood-damaged car?

Run a write-off check before you travel, then use your nose, your hands and a torch at the viewing. A flooded car can dry out and look clean, but water leaves marks that are hard to get rid of.

Look for:

• a musty, damp smell, or a lot of air freshener
• damp carpets, especially in the footwells and the boot
• condensation or water inside the light units
• a tide mark, silt or rust under the seats

One of these on its own doesn't prove anything. Several together are a reason to get the car inspected, or to walk away.

This page is part of our guide to car history checks.

Will a history check show flood damage?

It'll show a flooded car that an insurer wrote off. A write-off is a car the insurer paid out on instead of repairing, and it goes on the insurers' write-off register with a category letter.

A Comprehensive check shows whether an insurance write-off is recorded against the car, and its category. You can see a sample report before you buy a Comprehensive check.

A flood that never became an insurance claim leaves no write-off record.

Third-party-only cover, and third party, fire and theft, won't pay for flood damage to the owner's own car, so there's no claim to record. An owner with comprehensive cover might not claim either, to protect their no-claims discount (the price cut you earn for each year without a claim).

So run the check first, and still look the car over yourself when it comes back clear.

Before you go, ring the seller. Ask why they're selling, how long they've had the car, where it's been kept, and whether it's ever been flooded or written off. Ask them to put that last answer in a text.

A low price doesn't prove anything. But if it looks too good to be true, ask why.

What to look for when you view the car

View the car in daylight, and when it's dry if you can, because damage is harder to spot on a wet car. Take a torch.

Work through the car in this order:

• Before you get in, look at the windows. On a cold day, open ones may mean the seller is drying the car out or getting rid of a smell.
• Open the door and sniff. A musty, damp smell is likely in a flooded car, and lots of air freshener may be there to cover it.
• Feel the carpet in each footwell, then in the boot and the spare-wheel well. It can still be wet weeks or months after a flood, because these places are hard to dry out fully.
• Shine the torch under the front seats. Look for silt in the rails the seats slide on, rust on the metal seat frames, or a tide mark on the carpet.
• Start the engine and point the heater at the windscreen. A bit of misting is usually nothing to worry about. Glass that steams up straight away and takes a long time to clear can mean there's damp inside the car.
• Switch the ignition on and watch the airbag warning light. It should come on for a few seconds and then go out. If it stays on, or never comes on at all, the airbag system has a fault, and water can cause that.
• Try every switch, the stereo and every light. With the engine running there should be no warning lights left on.
• Look into each light unit for condensation or trapped water.
• Lift the bonnet and look along the low ledges for silt, mud or sand. Then take off the oil filler cap and look for a white deposit, a bit like mayonnaise. Water from a flood can cause it, but so can lots of short journeys or leaking coolant, so it only counts alongside other signs.
• Look underneath, and under the bonnet, for more rust than you'd expect on a car of its age.

What to do if you think it's been flooded

Ask the seller straight out: has this car ever been flooded, or written off? If you haven't got their answer in writing yet, get it now. A text or an email is fine.

Our list of questions to ask when buying a used car has the rest.

Then get the car inspected before you pay anything. An independent inspection gives you a detailed report on the car's condition. What's checked varies, but it can include the bodywork, the engine bay, the brakes and the steering, plus a road test.

It costs around £120 to £250. You can get one on a private sale too, as long as the seller agrees, and the Motor Ombudsman can tell you where to get one in your area.

If you're still not sure after that, look for another car.

Bought it and found it was flooded?

What you can do depends on who sold it to you.

From a dealer

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says a car bought from a dealer has to be of satisfactory quality, which includes being safe and durable. It also has to match its description.

If it doesn't, you can reject it for a refund within 30 days of it being handed over to you.

After 30 days, you can ask the dealer to repair or replace the car, at their cost. If that doesn't work, you can ask for some money back or reject the car.

"Sold as seen" on a dealer's advert doesn't take away these rights.

The quality rule doesn't cover damage the dealer pointed out to you before you bought. It doesn't cover anything your own look round the car ought to have shown you either.

From a private seller

A private sale is "sold as seen". There's no quality rule to fall back on. Under the Sale of Goods Act 1979, the car only has to match the seller's description of it.

A private seller can't misdescribe the car, but they can leave things out.

Say a written "no, never flooded" turns out to be false. You can write to the seller and ask for the difference between what you paid and what the car was worth. If they won't pay, you could take it to the small claims court.

At an auction

Buy a used car at a public auction you can go to in person and you probably won't have the rights you'd get from a dealer.

That rule doesn't cover an online-only auction, so there it depends on who's selling: a dealer or a private seller.

Our guide to your rights when a car has a fault after you buy it covers how to reject a car and what to do if the seller refuses.

If it's a flood write-off, what does the category mean?

The insurers' salvage code has a rule for water damage, and an assessor applies it to each car. A written-off car with no usable parts is Cat A. One with parts that can be reused is Cat B, and so is a car where water got into the cabin high enough to damage the electrics or safety systems. Every other water-damaged write-off is Cat N.

So a flood write-off can be any of three of the four write-off categories. The code doesn't list Cat S for water damage.

Cat A and Cat B write-offs can't be repaired and must never go back on the road. If a check shows either, don't buy the car.

Cat S means structural damage and Cat N means non-structural damage, and both can be repaired and driven again. Under the water-damage rule, a flood write-off that can go back on the road is a Cat N car.

A repaired Cat N flood car can be legal to drive and a decent buy. Flood damage can cause problems long after the car has dried out, though, so have it inspected and pay a price that reflects its history.

Get an insurance quote before you buy as well, because not every insurer will cover a car that's been written off.

Electric cars carry their battery pack low down, where flood water can reach it. Our page on used EV write-offs covers what that means for a buyer.

Flood-damaged cars: common questions