3 tips to protect your car on rainy and stormy days

During rainy and stormy days, along with ensuring people's safety, protecting property, especially valuable assets such as cars, is also very important and needs to be taken into account. In Vietnam, in addition to the dangers of storms and tornadoes, stormy days often bring heavy rain, causing localized flooding in many places. This is a threat and can be said to be a "nightmare" for many car owners, when the car is always on the verge of facing water hammer.

So how can you protect or limit damage to your car during the rainy and stormy season? Here are 3 things car owners should keep in mind.

Arrange a safe "storm shelter" for your vehicle

First of all, as mentioned, the biggest danger to cars during the rainy and stormy season is flooding. Because if you are unlucky enough to fall into a flooded area, your car will encounter many "troubles". The most serious of which is water hammer, which can cause serious damage to the car.

Therefore, to protect your car, the most important thing for car owners before the rain and storms come is to find a place to "avoid the storm". In particular, pay attention to avoid low-lying areas, apartment basements that do not ensure drainage conditions, areas near rivers, lakes or roads that are often flooded.

It is necessary to arrange a safe location for the car before the storm hits.

In addition to areas prone to flooding, to keep cars “safe” during rainy and stormy days, car owners should also avoid parking in potentially dangerous places. These include locations under large trees, construction sites, etc. Because storms can easily cause trees to fall, or cause construction materials to be blown away, collapse and hit the car, causing unexpected damage.

In addition, when parking in a fixed location, you should also avoid areas with weak soil or manhole covers. These locations are also prone to subsidence, posing a risk to your car.

Drive carefully

In cases of force majeure, when it is necessary to drive on the road during the rain and storm, to limit the risk to yourself as well as to protect your car, the car owner also needs to be extremely careful. First of all, it is necessary to minimize driving through flooded areas and roads. Or at least the driver needs to know the wading ability of the car; from there, only drive through roads where the water is not more than half the wheel.

Drive through flooded areas with extreme caution and be alert for the risk of hydrostatic shock.

Furthermore, when passing through flooded areas, drivers must carefully observe the vehicles in front to determine the water level and calculate whether their vehicle is capable of passing through. To ensure safety and ease of movement through flooded roads, the gearshift should be shifted to a low gear and the engine rpm should be kept high, while maintaining a steady speed to avoid water entering the exhaust pipe and causing the engine to stall.

Do not "tweak" or repair your car yourself when it is flooded.

If the car is unfortunately flooded and the engine stalls, the driver must not restart the car immediately. This action can easily lead to the risk of water hammer causing the connecting rod to bend, or worse, the engine block to break, which will be very expensive to repair.

In this case, the driver should turn off the engine, find a way to push the car to a higher position or, if possible, raise the chassis and immediately call for help.