Hurricane Ida Floods My BMW M240i Track Build
Just a few days after I got the Spec clutch broken in, my BMW M240i Track Build was caught in flood water from hurricane Ida. As you can see in the photos it was a bad day for the M240i. The water was over the bottom seat cushions at one point and to add insult to injury, the drivers side window opened by itself to let more rain in. Ida came through New Jersey in the evening of 9/1/21 and dumped 9+ inches of rain in just a few hours. Unable to get to the car until the following afternoon, the water and mud sat in the car for almost 24 hours.
Pumping out the water and assessing the damage
A submersible pool pump made quick work of pumping most of the water out but that was just the beginning of this messy job. I used a shop-vac to extract as much water out of the carpet as I could but it kept coming back. I placed a dehumidifier in the car and let it run overnight. It was full in the morning but the carpet was still soaked. After vacuuming repeatedly and running the dehumidifier non-stop it was clear that the carpets needed to come out. The carpet has a molded foam backing that’s attached to the carpet itself and it was saturated like a sponge. Due to future mold concerns, I ordered new carpets from my local dealership. They come in two pieces, a front section and a rear section.
Because the seats were under water it’s going to be easier to replace them as well. The drivers seat was still moving but the motor or switch was shorted out because it moved forward when you moved the switch backward and vice versa. Because all the motors were underwater along the side seat mounted airbags I didn’t feel comfortable trying to salvage anything in the seats. Besides, the foam was soaked and would probably have mold going forward.
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More on the M240i build
This M240i is a B58-powered street/track project. New here? Start with the M240i street/track build overview to see the mod list and where the car began. I’ll keep updating this post as the flood recovery and rebuild continue — check back for the next chapter.