What to do with cars ruined in storms?

Flatbed trucks are hauling hundreds of flood-damaged cars along Interstate 10, not the segment known in Southern California as the Santa Monica freeway but the stretch that runs from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.

An estimated 300,000 vehicles were inundated by flood waters from storm surges, breached levees and heavy rains brought by hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Many are still stranded in front of homes and along streets in some areas where cleanup has barely begun.

Auction networks are full of ads for such cars. Want a 2003 BMW 330Ci, but haven’t been able to afford one? How about one from a flood? It’s advertised on the Internet. It was inundated by a “low fresh water flood,” according to the seller. It doesn’t say where it came from, but such promotions seldom do.

Some of the nation’s major insurers want to see flood damaged vehicles crushed, while others have declared an intent to recycle them into the salvage vehicle market. Progressive Group of Insurance Cos., for example, has crushed up to 5,000 vehicles registered to policyholders in coastal Louisiana, according to Eric Brandt, the company’s claims manager in New Orleans.

“These vehicles were sitting in E-coli infested water,” said company spokeswoman Courtney Cesari. “It didn’t seem safe at all to salvage them.”

Most other insurers did not take quite as tough an approach. Many of the vehicles were never insured, and their fates are in the hands of their owners. Not only are these cars potential lemons, but some are also contaminated with toxic substances leaked from chemical plants and refineries that flooded.

Certainly, some of the moderately flooded cars from New Orleans can be restored. If engines and transmissions were not filled with water and critical electrical system were not submerged, some of these cars could potentially be restored and used. But you still run the risk of underbody rust and mold in the carpeting or upholstery. In the worst cases, the water has caused subtle damage to mechanical, hydraulic or electrical systems that will cause headaches for years to come.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau has begun compiling lists of cars that were flood damaged, in an effort to prevent those autos from being recycled into the national used-car auction system. It has set up a registry of these vehicles that can be searched by vehicle identification number. You can visit the organization’s website and search the registry at www.nicb.com.

If you are shopping for a used car, now is a good time to limit your search to vehicles with a demonstrated history of being registered and owned away from flood areas. Check the smog history of the vehicle. The Bureau of Automotive Repair’s website allows individuals to examine the smog test history of any vehicle, either by the license plate number or the vehicle identification number. Find the free service at www.smogcheck.ca.gov. Navigate to the smog-check page through a link on the left side of the home page. Then select “query test history for a vehicle.”

The results will provide a date and a smog test station each time a vehicle was tested in California. It’s easy to tell which cars have spent their lifetimes here, rather than some place prone to watery events. A somewhat easier and more complete approach is to purchase a VIN history of a used vehicle you may be planning to buy. Services that offer such Internet data include www.carfax.com and www.autocheck.com. The services will provide data on where and when a car’s title was transferred. It includes smog tests and the odometer readings at those test locations.

Ideally, state authorities should make available all of the data associated with vehicle histories. Cars are lasting longer than ever. That means that cars are more frequently owned by third, fourth and even fifth owners. Those later owners, often of lower income and more vulnerable to fraud, should have the same protections that new car owners enjoy under state law.

Ralph Vartabedian can be reached at ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com.