Here's How to Avoid Buying a Hurricane Damaged Car

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

Hurricanes have socked the Southeast lately, and with that in mind, we speak with Patrick Olsen from Carfax about how you can avoid buying one of these vehicles that's been flood damaged.


Olsen supplied us with some numbers -- up to 138,000 vehicles were flood damaged due to Helene, on top of 89,000 flood-damaged vehicles already this year.

These states saw the brunt of it:

Florida: 60,700
South Carolina: 27,500
North Carolina: 22,900
Georgia: 16,800
Tennessee: 4,900
Virginia: 4,900


Matthew Guy and I then discuss retractable extension cords and NASCAR playoffs after the Alex Bowman disqualification.

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can click here.

We thank Patrick and Matthew, as well as Matt Posky for editing. Most of all, we thank you for listening!

[Image: Ovidiu Dugulan]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Jeff Jeff on Oct 20, 2024
    Look for signs of water inside the interior, interiors that have been deodorized, any musty smells, and any rust inside the doors on a late model vehicle, If you are not sure what to look for pay a mechanic to look the vehicle over. If in doubt don't buy and might be a good idea if you don't need a vehicle to wait long after a major hurricane or flood.
  • ToolGuy ToolGuy on Oct 22, 2024
    Interesting guest. 4/5.
  • MaintenanceCosts It at least looks more like a Cadillac and less like a Traverse than the XT6. I'm a shopper in this segment and would give it a test drive, which I wouldn't bother with for the XT6.
  • 1995 SC Early El Camino = coolLate El Camino = coolThis one = not cool
  • AZFelix A calendar search shows Saturday May 14th could have recently been in 2005, 2011, 2016, and 2022. The phone number now shows for Coys Wheel in Kaysville, UT.
  • ToolGuy Tim said climate change is real, so I don't think this will ever apply to me.
  • Arthur Dailey Always liked these. One of Nissan's last 'extra base hit' vehicles? Can't remember ever seeing a shifter worn as much as the one on this vehicle.
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