Bad Karma!!

Went to Hayling Island yesterday morning and turned down my mother's lane close to the shoreline. Highest spring tide in 30 years produced 150m length of water up to 250mm deep. Other cars had gone through so I did too!

Textbook stuff- not too fast, keep revs up, keep to the top of the camber to minimise water depth. Got through the water and arrived at mum's house and parked up.

Spent the whole day there and went to leave after about 5 hours. Crank the diesel engine-- Ghastly 'bag of spanners' noises under the bonnet!! Stopped engine, preyed, lifted bonnet to see if anything looked wrong and re-started engine. The noise seemed very physical, as if a hammer was striking something outside the engine! once raised the revs above tick over it got alot better. Checked the oil level- fine.

Decided to press on back home (about 35 miles). Once the engine had warmed to normal temperatures the mechanical noise wasn't there but any form of acceleration produced very bad vibrations from the engine area. We crawled home and thankfully got home in one piece.

I started the car again this morning with the same cold start hammering noises. Took the car to my Alfa "guru" who droved it round the block and straight into the workshop!
It would appear that I've got water in one cylinder and almost certainly a bent con rod! One very expensive 75 mile trip!!

The choices are either find an engine or get a rebuild- both are chuffing expensive!!! Circa £2000. The problem appears to be the ridiculously low location of the air intake (just in front of the driver's side wheel).
Whatever happens I will seriously consider altering the induction arrangements!

Anybody got a 1.9 JTDm engine going spare?

Best bet look for a 147 jtdm.. Can pick one up less than £800 now . Strip that.

Sorry to hear that Chris.

I have a 1.9 JTDm engine for sale. It comes with a free car, at £5,000 for an 08 plate Lusso model in red if you want?

Did the same in my clio dci 2.5 years ago.

Rebuilt it this year! Bent a conrod, piston, gudgeon pin oh and the crank!!! I akways try to keep revs minimal now.

Yes, seems to happen quite often with these Where people are concerned about the water going over the exhaust, etc, they don't realise that the air intake is so low and sucks the water through.

Have you tried claiming from your car insurance? When I worked at the below garage, we had a customer that managed to claim for the damage through his insurance.

As for a spare engine, you could try Allitalia Ltd, in Wrexham on 01978 757588. Speak to Howard. He often has a lot of Alfa spares and scrap cars in stock, including engines

Bad news, sorry to hear and I hope you can get a bit of better luck finding a fix.

This issue also effects my 1.9TiD Saab.
I actually could have been in the same boat this week, as I was faced with an extended flooded patch along my local lane.
Despite running late, I decided to turn around and take the 3 mile detour.
As I live very close to the River Severn I really need to get something which will swim a tad deeper!
Had my wife been driving the Saab, instead of her Golf, she would have driven straight through (just because other cars do) and we would be looking for a new car! She drove straight through the same patch a hour or so before I got to it, but never rang to warn me!!!!

Good advice T.
Wife did this in her C-Max and had a new engine under the insurance.
We had to contribute 10% (mileage adjustment) but this was only the cost of a full service + belt anyway.
If the road isn't closed, then it legally opens the insurance floodgates.

Happens quite often in Fuengirola. Most of the year the Rio Fuenghirola is a trickle along its bed if even that, so people routinely cross it on the unmade roads down from the outlying urbanisations. It is a great shortcut.

However come winter rainfall, things change. The bed is not smooth so it only takes one deeper rut to get many well small diesel engined cars to ingest water.

That's a nightmare! The GTV has a low air intake too. These italians are crazy with their design quirks.Good luck with remedying the carnage caused.

Well that was your first mistake.

Sorry to hear about the car though.

I drove through a load of water much deeper than that in my saab tid about a year and a half ago. Stalled and would not start....

Water in the airbox etc. started it two days later and water poring out of the exhaust, so fair to say it got into the cylinders.

No bent rods, and engine all fine!

I was really shocked when I saw how low the intake was though - I had no idea it was so low down, and I also can't see any reason why it has to be there either.....

Hope you get it sorted out - if you try the insurance route be sure to tell them the water was very shallow. I had issues with RAC on the phone convincing them to come and pick me and the car up...

My wife did this a few years ago in her Galaxy. The air intake on them was about 8 inches from the floor!

We claimed on insurance (flood damage) and had a new engine fitted.