It’s fun, but is it smart?
It is a research that we like to keep citing: men only become adults after their 54th birthday. So driving your car through a puddle and enjoying it to the fullest is nothing to be ashamed of. Just like with other things in life (but strangely enough with car-related matters) not everything that is fun is also wise. So: driving fast through a puddle, is that bad?
hydrolock
Unlike air, water does not like to be compressed. Should it enter the engine through the air intake, the piston will try to push the water in as it normally does with air and fuel. Then ‘hydrolock’ occurs. At low speeds, the engine will stall, after which you should not try to start it again. But if the car is up to speed and the engine revs, it can cause a lot of misery.
The piston in the engine hits something that won’t move, as it were, but that energy has to go somewhere. This can cause a bent connecting rod, a broken crankshaft, but also a crack in the head or the block itself. Anyway: dull misery and an engine overhaul.
So driving fast through a puddle is a bad idea?
Most car brands have been building cars for many years now and you can quietly assume that they pay attention to rain and puddles when designing and testing. The chance is quite small that you will just have to deal with hydrolock. But if you go looking for the puddles – and especially if you have mounted a sports air filter somewhere low – you obviously increase the chance of misery.
Driving fast through deep puddles can of course also cause other problems. Perhaps there is a heat shield under your car not so tight anymore, then you have lost it nicely. Or you drive other parts loose. It is also annoying that you do not properly estimate how deep the puddle is and that your rims get a big blow. If we were a less responsible platform, we’d recommend saving these types of activities for rental cars. But of course we won’t do that.
