Not the invincible tank I guess I thought it was

So we had "Hurricane Hillary" come through and hit us here out in the desert. Flooded pretty much all the roads out where I live near Palm Springs. I chuckled at all the cars stopped on the side of the road as I barreled through the water with my lifted, fully armored taco sitting on 33s. Even winched another truck out that had gotten stuck in mud.

Next day I go to start her up, and get nothing but a weird clicking noise. Did battery load test, scan tool, etc and ultimately diagnosed it as a bad starter. None in stock at two different local dealerships. Had one shipped from OEM parts, and two days later swapped out the old one for the new and everything was righteous again.

Learned these trucks do not like water at all. Didn't fully submerge it, but I'm guessing the high speed runs through the water splashed up enough in there to short out the starter. Rig has 42k miles on it currently. Only a $200 lesson doing it myself, dealer wanted $750 for labor & parts. Guess I gotta slow down next time and not pretend I'm in a boat.

 

My Taco boat won’t float!

 

Barreling through flooded streets can cause a lot more damage than to the starter -
It doesn't take much to pick you up and just float you away.

 

These trucks don’t like water .

 

Alternators also don't like water in them, I learned that the hard way doing a similar exercise

 

wait, you're judging the whole truck on a broken starter?

 

Live and learn

 

I'm just saying care must be taken in conditions like this. Consider this my PSA. My buddy in his newer F-150 was tagging along right beside me and he didn't have any problems next day.

 

You can drive through pretty deep water. But the key is slow and steady. Don't stop, don't back up, don't drive fast enough to splash water. Just keep moving forward at a steady speed until you get to shallow water.

 

You’re not doing it right then

 

be thankful it was not salt water. a lifetime of reminders.

 

And that's an empty tub?!?

 

We need to start a subforum for drowned tacomas

 

I guess we need to relocate our starters to the same height as our cool Instagram-worthy snorkels…

(posting for Friday readers)

 

These trucks are not designed to be driven like they drive um' in the commercials.

Thank you for the PSA

 

It could be worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HowJfwnEtRo

 

A decent amount of speed can push a wave of water much much higher than any lift and taller tire.

 

Unfortunately that's not an arb so it doesn't hit the insta cool list

 

Did you maybe not listen to your dad or other old timers telling you not to do this? You got off cheap. Hydrolock, not cheap.