I recently had a severe mishap and my Audi convertible was flooded approx 3 inches in a rainstorm. I managed to bucket the water out and dry the floor with towels. I also used a wet/dry vac to repel any additional water left in the floorboards. However, now my leather seats have a severe water line and hardening, the carpet smells terrible, but worst of all the dummy lights are flashing. Yesterday the add coolant light flashed and today the dash lights are dimming and the oil pressure light began to flash. Is this all related or a complete fluke?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

THANKS

 

It's related.

Moisture and electronics really don't mix. Your best bet would be to take the car to a dealer to look at the instrument cluster. You more likely than not got water inside of your dashboard (likely from the top down) and it's shorting one or more of the circuit boards out.

While your car may run fine, your gauges will be shot forever due to a corrosion buildup on the metal leads that connect everything.

A dealer will probably be able to fix this issue, but I couldn't put a price tag on how much it would run.

It should be free just to have the dealer take a look at your car and give you a quote for the repairs, however.

Good luck.

 

With only 3" of water on the floor you should be able to get it back to normal but it will take some work and money. I would remove the seats and carpets.I would also go to an auto body shop that has a paint booth with heaters and pay them to put the car in the booth for a an hour or so and turn the heat up. As for the seats you can try using a good leather cleaner and follow up with leather treatment. Go to a good upholstery shop and see what they recommend. Any connectors or components that were submerged in water will need to be cleaned and dried but may need to be replaced. Usually corrosion becomes a problem if the components were under water. Another suggestion is to contact a flood clean up business or a salvage yard and see how they treat this type of problem. You would be surprised on how many cars were dried out and resold from Katrina. Good luck.

 

yea bad new, You have a few module under the carpet that are going to be bad. Your best bet and going thru you insurance company and bringing it to the dealer. You bring it somewhere else and they will never get it right.

Most dealers have experience with water leaks.

 

I had water damage once and they just totalled the car. The cost of electronics is very expensive. Call your insurance company for sure.