Posts in category: Blogs

Driving through gushing water, flooded roads, and waterlogged areas may seem like an adventure to some drivers, and for few it may seems a perfect opportunity to get their vehicle underbody cleaned. However, this can lead to serious consequences, particularly during heavy rainfall that causes significant flooding. Navigating through deep water can be costly and detrimental to your vehicle.

An experienced driver understands that water and engines do not go well. Encountering deep water can quickly send you to the garage—or worse, the local scrapyard.

Have You Ever Experienced Hydrostatic Lock in Your Car?

If you’ve driven through heavy water flow, you may have already encountered a hydrostatic lock. This occurs when your vehicle stalls during or after crossing a water-filled puddle or submerged area. The engine stops working due to water filling the combustion chamber, leading to engine seizure. If you’re unlucky, this could result in catastrophic engine failure, necessitating a major engine overhauling or complete engine replacement.

What Is Hydrostatic Lock?

An internal combustion engine functions like an air pump, designed to compress air and fuel. When a significant volume of water replaces the air in the intake pipe and enters the cylinder, the crankshaft’s rotation forces the piston upward in an attempt to compress the fluid. Since water is virtually incompressible, this can cause severe damage to engine components, potentially leading to engine failure.

How Does Hydrostatic Lock Damage Your Car Engine?

The extent of engine damage largely depends on the engine’s speed and capacity. A small-capacity engine may simply seiz, resulting in minor, fixable damage. However, a powerful engine operating at high speeds is more likely to suffer severe internal damage.

The most commonly affected component is the connecting rod, which can bend and require replacement or an engine rebuild. Surprisingly, you might drive your car for months with bent connecting rods without noticing issues, but they can eventually snap, causing metal shards to circulate within the cylinder block. This scenario often necessitates major repairs or a complete engine replacement.

Other potential damages include crankcase damage, damaged bearings, pistons, fractured cranks, heads Valves, or even the engine block.

Possible Causes of Hydrostatic Locking:

Driving through large bodies of water can allow water to fill the combustion chamber via the engine’s air intake manifold. As the engine rotates, water fills each cylinder until the pistons can no longer compress it, leading to mechanical failure.

Signs of a Hydro-Locked Engine:

To help you identify a hydro-locked engine and take action before the situation worsens, here are some signs to watch for:

The Car Won’t Start:

 If water fills the cylinders, the car will not start. Repeated attempts to start the engine will only exacerbate the problem.

Rough Engine Performance:

 Water can affect engine performance, leading to unusual noises such as knocking or hammering.

Engine Stalling:

You may be able to drive your car intermittently, but it may fail to start at times. Delaying a visit to the garage increases the likelihood of engine stalling.

Hydrostatic lock during rainy season:

Driving through gushing water might seem like an adventure to some drivers, but not when they know what can go wrong, in this context, extremely wrong.

We are not talking about slight drizzling, but days when heavy rainfall causing floods, when enormous water makes its way on the road or stagnant water in your way, take a turn because driving your car through it can cost you heavily.

An experienced driver with a grasp on how an internal combustion engine works will try his best to stay away from it. Let us tell you that engine and water are never a great combination. It can only give you a fast track to the garage, or worse, the local scrapyard.

Have You Ever Experienced Hydrostatic Lock on Your Car?

If you made the mistake of driving through heavy water flow, chances are you have already experienced a hydrostatic lock on your car. When your car was in the water or just crossed a water-filled puddle, your car broke down because the engine stopped working. Familiar!!!

It was the hydrostatic lock that made the engine stop. The water filled the combustion chamber, resulting in engine seizure.

If it isn’t your lucky day, the engine might never start because of a catastrophic failure. And you have to go for a complete replacement of the engine.

Let us understand what a hydrostatic lock is and how it works.

What Is a Hydrostatic Lock?

The internal combustion engine looks like a form of an air pump, its internals are all designed to deal with the compression of air and fuel. When the air is replaced by a substantial volume of water, through the intake air pipe into the cylinder, the rotation of the crankshaft forces the piston upwards to try and compress the fluid. HERE

We know that water is virtually incompressible unless a huge amount of pressure is applied to it. The engine components get damaged in this push and pull, resulting in engine failure.

Now, we have understood the basics of hydro static locking and the possibility of a complete engine failure because of it. but how do some car engines only experience minor damage while others car engines are damaged beyond repair? Let us find out.

How Does a Hydrostatic Lock Damage Your Car Engine?

The severity of the engine damage highly depends on the engine’s speed. If the engine is of small capacity and doesn’t generate much force during reciprocation, the motor may simply seize up, grinding to a halt. It will only result in small fixable damage to the engine components.

But if it is a powerful engine with a decent capacity, rotating at any great speed, the reaction forces will most probably break the internal components.

The most common component that takes the hit most of the time is connecting rods. It can bend resulting in the need for replacement and an engine rebuild. Surprisingly, you might run your car for months with bent connecting rods without noticing any problem, but they will fully snap at a point in time, causing large shards of metal to bounce around the cylinders and down into the crankcase. In this case, the car will require an engine replacement.

Other than that, the engine failure can lead to crankcase damage, damaged bearings, piston, a fractured crank, head, or even blockage, or any combination of these.

Possible Causes of Hydrostatic Locking:

Water: As we have discussed earlier, driving through a large body of water can give a chance for water to fill the combustion chamber through the engine’s air intake manifold. With each revolution of the engine, the water starts filling in each cylinder until the pistons cannot compress upwards any longer. And this will result in mechanical failure of the car engine.

Signs of Hydro Locked Engine:

To keep you in a safe space, we have made a list of signs of a hydro locked motor so that you can take the necessary actions before the problem becomes worse.

·     The car won’t start: If there is a large volume of water in the cylinders, the car won’t start and trying to run the engine again and again will only make things worse for your engine.

·     Your engine will run noticeably rough: The water will affect the engine performance and various noises start to come like knocking & hammering.

·     Engine stalling: Like in the case of bent connecting rods, you will be able to drive your car but sometimes, it won’t start. The longer you will wait to take your car to the garage, the more the chances of engine stalling increases. In short, to avoid hydrostatic locking, keep an eye on your engine performance and avoid the flooded roads.

The conventional knowledge is that – a) Dealership workshops are the best b) Road side workshops with low overheads are the cheapest c) Online aggregators are quite affordable for car services d) Good Multi-brand service centres are not tried and tested. Let’s explore together the accuracy of this perception and check if these hold any firm ground.

A. Dealership Workshops:

These service centres are commonly known as “Dealership Workshop” as they are approved by manufacturer for servicing that particular brand of vehicles. 

Advantages:

• They have well established processes to follow while handling vehicles.
• The technicians are trained. 
• Technical help from the manufacturer is available as and when required. 
• Warranty works are entertained. 

Disadvantages: 

• Undue advantages are taken in the name of authorized Service Center.
• Mandatory replacement of spare parts in service, though all parts may not be required.
• Mandatory Wheel Alignment and Balancing in every service. It begs the question as to how one can precisely tell that vehicle needs alignment and balancing without checking tyre visually or without going on a road test or by physically putting the vehicle on alignment machine or tyre balancer?
• Consumable amount is added in invoice, though periodic maintenance labour charge includes consumable charges as per manufacturer. 
• Over and above adding consumable amount in invoice, additional amount is charged in invoice for Parts & Lubes like – rust spray, grease, brake cleaning spray etc. whereas these charges are included in PMS labour charges as per OEM directives.
• Unwanted Value-Added Services promotion, though not recommended by manufacturer.
• Unwanted seasonal repair promotions (examples: A/C Overhauling in Summer, Heaters & Battery promotion in Winter, Wiper blades, Tyres, Defogger repairs etc in Rainy season).
• Washing charges are levied, though it’s included in the periodic maintenance charges as per manufacturer.

B. Unorganized Local Garages:

The reality of most, but not all, of these road side garages, also known as unstructured multi-brand centers, is that it is run by individuals who enter into automobile field at a very early age as helpers and get some kind of practical training on mechanical or electrical work. They come together and collect some funds from near and dear ones and open barely equipped, bare-minimum makeshift car garages. Such places do not have any kind of certifications or license from any government body to operate a workshop and since the overheads are very less, they offer services at a very cheap rate but at the cost of quality and safety. 

Advantages: 

• Overheads are less, hence service rates are very less.
• Mechanical and Electrical labour charges can be negotiated.

Disadvantages:

• They lack the skill matrix and expertise to handle different jobs. If a vehicle is stuck up for diagnosing then N number of people are called in to check and diagnose. Trial and Error method is used to fix issues.
• Service by untrained technician may lead to breakdowns.
• Special tools being expensive, local methods are used to remove and re-install components in turn damaging the nuts and bolts.
• Lack of Ownership on repeat jobs.
• Financially not stable, hence if a major repeat job occurs then accountability is the issue.
• Almost all such centers do not have insurance for vehicles inside their premises.
• Quality, Safety and reliability of spare parts is debatable all the time.

C. Online Car Service Aggregators:

These are app-based organisations with no brick and mortar of their own. They work on margin sharing module. These organizations are very strong on various platforms, promoting different services. The only way they attract customers is by advertising different services at throw-away prices. These aggregators have tie-ups with local garages & multi-brand service centres for services & repairs.

Advantages:

• Strong follow up with customers on work in progress status and with workshop on timely delivery.
• Accountability on repeat job.

Disadvantages:

• The vehicle will be sent to a workshop in your vicinity, irrespective of the kind of workshop – it can be a local workshop or a well-structured multi-brand service center.
• Costing – To lower the cost, different packages of periodic maintenance services are designed and rates are offered accordingly, whereas the fact is that a full periodic maintenance service has to be carried out once in a year or 10,000 kms whichever comes first.  Customers choosing lower periodic maintenance packages may be lower the performance of their vehicle in the long run.

D. Multi-brand Service Centres:

These fall in-between the high-cost dealerships and unorganized local garages. They have better infrastructure than local garages with proper SOPs, providing services to customer at a price lower than dealerships.

Advantages:

• They are as good as dealership service centers.
• Trained Technicians are hired from dealership; hence quality of work is good.
• Affordable Rate– Much lesser than a dealership and marginally more than a road side workshops.
• Only required parts are replaced. The concept of mandatory replacement of spare part in service is not encouraged.
• Cashless Insurance Repair facility is available, similar to a dealership service center.
• Personal attention is given to each vehicle. Since they don’t sell new vehicles, there is no addition of new vehicles to their pool, hence their quality of work has to be good and customer satisfaction should be high to retain customers.
• Any Repeat jobs are taken care immediately with high accountability.
• Generally, workmanship warranty is for more months compared to other centers.

Disadvantages:

• Delays in procurement of Spare parts as dealers don’t want to sell the parts to bigger multi-brand service center to kill the competition and maintain their monopoly.
• At times, delay in delivery of vehicle as they have limited staff and if personnel are on leave without prior intimation, they don’t have replacement from other branches like dealers have.
• They cannot entertain warranty work. 

After analysing all the pros and cons, different surveys conducted and the dealership reports we can draw the following conclusion:

• Vehicle users are forced to stick to dealership service center for keeping their warranty alive and in turn paying exorbitant charges in the name of servicing.
• Once the warranty period is over, they prefer going to other service center as different surveys have shown that 60% of customer do not visit dealership workshop after warranty.
• The concept of well structed Multi-brand Service Center competing with Dealership service center is at the tipping point of taking off.
• It is little risky to get the work done at local garages due to lack of training, the impact is on quality.
• We leave it to your better judgment to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of approaching a certain car service provider, which suits best your needs.