My Tacoma up a creek. How f*cked am I?

dang it i came in to post this

 

Lots of water crossings on FS roads. Due to the nature of the roads themselves, it's often unavoidable.
There are FS roads within a few miles of my house that I could take the Camry through today, but would impassible in the Tacoma after a couple days rain.

 

How did that process go? Did you tell them what road you were on and they took your word? Always wondered if they'd cover anything on a VT class IV or a NH class VI. Apparently they know the difference?

 

About half the trucks in my off-road club have gotten swamped. Pull the carpet to wash and dry outside the truck. Open every low-positioned electrical connector and flush with Deoxit. The Taco is good in a sense that none of the critical computers are mounted on the floor. The lights and most gremlins should go away in a week or so. The smell could take longer...

The delay in starting is your starter taking a crap for having water in the casing. It's on borrowed time. Order a replacement now.

For the MT folks, the clutch works funny with muddy water in it

 

In Arkansas, there's a series of FS trails mapped out called the "High Water Mark Trail". Idea is to find the deepest crossing out of the many that cross the Ozarks.

 

https://youtu.be/bodVVtqmbZE?t=78

 

They sent an off road tow truck out to get me and reimbursed me the $400 it cost. The only hard part was walking a couple miles to find cell signal to make the call.

 

No those are typical road classifications. They have to do with some government entity or another being responsible for maintaining the roads for use under normal conditions. When you get to class IV the roads are no longer maintained by anyone so it's sort of a drive at your own kind sort of thing.

 

I like how we're condemning trying to scam insurance companies but okay with scamming a future Tacoma owner.

That's pretty awesome...

 

My wife once drove her Civic onto a flooded city street that completely swamped the car...we're talking two feet of water inside the car. Of course, the check engine light came on. We took it to the dealer, they checked the codes and said it threw every single code it had. The car was still working fine, though, so they just reset everything and told her to bring it back if the light came back on. The light never did come back on. So, maybe it's not as bad as you fear.

 

I would get those lights not to show, and sell it to caravana. They will probably give you 40K

 

Thanks for the input everyone.

Some more info:
I didn't think the water was quite as deep as it turned out to be. I was in 4LO with MTS set to mud and sand, but I eventually just stopped moving forward and was spinning wheels. Maybe I would have made it if I hit it with more speed initially - I'm not sure.

At that point, I put it in reverse and managed to back back part of the way out but got stuck again. I did engage the e-locker but didn't seem to make a difference. Just felt like I was spinning wheels again.

So I turned it off since the water looked pretty high and I didn't want to risk drowning the engine. And started working to try and pull it out.

When I got out of the cabin to start working on recovery, the water was inside was probably 6-8" high on driver side and a bit shallower on passenger side. Probably got higher while working on pulling it out. Once it was out, I opened the doors and water absolutely poured out.

Several people have said even if I get the current problems resolved, I'll probably be chasing electrical problems as long as I own it. That was what I was concerned about so I'm going to see if I can make a claim with my insurance. If they tell me to pound sand, I'll do what I can to clear up the current DTCs and sell it to Carvana or the like. Or if none of those pan out, I suppose I'll just learn to live with it for the time being.

 

As a fellow texas resident - please do not attempt to cross when it's at flood stage. The fact that the tree is several feet from dry land in your picture should be a damn good indicator that this crossing is not to be fucked with. Swamped truck is not even close to the worst case scenario - thank your lucky stars you didn't get swept downstream. A lot of people die that way around here, and it isn't exactly a pleasant way to go.

 

Yikes. Wish you luck OP.

I’m super paranoid when it comes to mud and water crossings, I always try to walk it first.

 

This is why I don’t buy used trucks. Lol.

 

same. you have no idea what the last guy did

 

Ya, I'm sorry if that makes me an asshole. I kinda hoping insurance will just total it at this point so then it won't be anyones problem (within reason).

 

Even when new, you don’t know what the last guy “did”.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/stain-on-dash-after-delivery-of-new-taco.723812/#post-25776885

 

ummm.....that looks nasty

 

When you were crossing, did you hit something under water that stopped you, or did you just sink into the soft bottom?