There’s something about destruction that fascinates the human mind. It’s in us as children, when we topple our block towers. It’s in us as teenagers as we watch monster trucks roll over the rusty husks of old cars. And it’s in us today, when we watch a poor French car choke itself to death in deep floodwaters. It’s a sound quite unlike anything else.
The video comes to us from Tom Sunderland, a YouTuber who specializes in flood videos in the UK. You know the sort—where foolhardy drivers plow on through deep waters, only to see their cars come grinding to a halt. Typically, if you see a YouTuber filming next to a body of water, that’s a great sign you shouldn’t drive through it. Still, people do every day.
If you’ve seen one of these videos, you’ve seen them all, but this one has something special. It’s all about the sound … because there’s something hauntingly beautiful [Ed Note: I dunno about “beautiful.” -DT] about the death rattle of this forsaken Renault Clio.
Mistakes Made
Many of these videos showcase overconfidence and bravado, but that’s not the case here. We see the owner gingerly taking a cautious route into the waters. They proceed slowly alongside the kerb, which appears to be the shallowest area on the road.
Despite their slow progress, they soon come to minor grief. As water crests the hood (bonnet in the UK), the car slows to a crawl, then lurches to a stop. Restarting the car fails, so the owner gets out to push the vehicle to safety. It’s an easy enough task with the compact French hatch. It’s here they should have given up and called for help, but they would make one further mistake.
With the car now out of the water, the owner attempts to restart the car once more. Amazingly, it bursts to life. We know this because we see steam billowing from the exhaust pipes. That should have been a clue to shut it down—it was a clear sign that the engine had taken on water. Nonetheless, the Renault is pressed harder, and revved higher—and then it happens.
The sickening crack, snap, and rattle of an engine blown to pieces. The steam recedes instantly, a small trail wafting away into the air, as a thick stream of oil pours on to the road below.
The aftermath is quite something. Poring over the scene of the incident, Tom Sunderland found a hell of a mess. Not only was oil spread all over the roadway, but there were huge aluminum chunks of engine block left lying on the tarmac.
The cause of the destruction was hydrolock, which happens when water gets into the cylinders of the engine. The problem is that unlike air, water is not particularly compressible. The damage occurs when the piston rises on the compression stroke. When there’s water in the cylinder, the rising piston can’t compress it at all, but it has the crankshaft and connecting rod forcing it upwards anyway. Normally, this causes the connecting rod to bend or snap, and it often takes a big chunk of the engine block with it. It’s a surefire way to destroy an engine in mere seconds.
In this case, this Clio’s engine is pretty much irreparable. If there are chunks of engine block on the ground, you’re going to want a whole new engine. It’s interesting to note that this appears to be a very recent model. It has the tail lights that debuted on the 2023 facelift of the Clio V. A shame to see it destroyed so young.
It’s no surprise the engine failed in this manner. Commuter cars are not built to ford deep water, especially when it gets up over the hood. Had the owner backed out early, or perhaps even avoided restarting the car, they might have had some engine left. But by forcing the issue, they condemned this fine Renault to an early grave. A shame, but something we can all learn from.
Image credits: Tom Sunderland via YouTube screenshot, MichaelXXLF CC BY-SA 3.0
My 1988 Corolla 4wd Wagon has an interesting air intake system to prevent this. Between the air intake behind a headlight and the air cleaner there is a purge tank that holds about 5 litres of water which is usually empty but any water getting sucked through the intake will fall into this tank and then through a one way drain in the bottom of it that releases into the front wheel well. Kind of over engineered for the actual off road use this car will get but I guess is designed to prevent hydrolock to some extent?
Aluminum nuggets!
These YouTube links are odd. 50% of the time they work, 50% of the time I’m instructed to sign in to prove I’m not a bot. If they don’t work I send them to my email and they’re fine. Not complaining, just a curiosity.
I’ve killed an engine in a deep puddle but that was water coming in hitherto unknown rust holes and drowning the ECU.