Flooded Cars For Sale?

Find Out How To Avoid Being Scammed

(CBS) 
"No consumer should be buying these cars, they're festering with ecoli, hepatitis, cholera," he says. "These cars may eventually make you sick and threaten your life. If that airbag doesn't deploy when you need it, you are in series trouble."

So how do crooks get away with this scam? By not just washing the cars but their titles, too, of any evidence they were in a flood.

Gamache showed McGinnis an online Carfax report of a 1999 Volkswagen Jetta.

"It was originally titled in Texas, where it was issued a flood damage title," Gamache says. "This car was damaged in flood water. It was moved to Illinois and the title was laundered. It doesn't have that flood damage indicator in the state of Illinois."
So a buyer in Illinois may never find out it was in a flood.

"It's unbelievable," Gamache says. "Somebody's driving that car today and they have no idea that car was sitting in flood water."

Diane Zelinski wished she knew her car's history before putting her son in the driver's seat.

"The three and a half weeks that he was driving in this car," she says, "he was driving around in a time bomb."

That's why it's important with any used car to get a report showing its full history. You can get a Carfax report online for less than $25. Also have mechanic check any used car before buying it.

Here are some signs you can spot if the car has been in a flood:

• Check in the trunk. Pull the carpeting up and look around the spare tire well for signs that water's been there. Look for any rust, mud, dirt or sand.
  
  
• Go inside the car and pull up the floor mats, such as the one from the driver's seat. Feel the floor and carpeting for dampness or moisture.
  
  
• Check under the hood. Look for a ring around the engine compartment — a water line that's marked by rust, mud or silt. It indicates that the engine was submerged in water at some point. If you see that, walk away.