Hello from an Island and a question about floods

[Tim O]

Hello all from the Isle of Wight! I had two Subarus (a saloon and an estate) back in the late seventies / eighties when they were comparatively unknown. Got great pleasure from surprising people in the snow (I lived in Gloucestershire then) when they thought they were "ordinary" cars and few knew about the 4 WD capability of these marvellous beasts. Then worked in Africa and Asia for a long time where my organisation provided Toyota pick-ups. Now back in the UK and retired and live at the end of a long farm track so I picked up a lovely 51 plate Forester with low mileage. Had it for 15 months and it goes like a dream and no problems. I've put on 15,000 miles. 

 

That's the introduction now the question. We all know about the floods. I can't afford to get into snorkels etc so I was just wanting to ask all you experts what the deepest water is that you would safely take a 2001 Forester through? Standard suspension, no lifts. I'm asking because there's a section of road just outside our lane which got flooded every time it rained. There were "Road Closed" signs everywhere and, unless I went through it, it involved a very long detour. I reckon, from checking it out, that it's about 15" deep. Too deep or no problem?

 

Cheers everyone. Nice to have discovered such an informative site and many thanks.

 

[Jay762]

Wotcha and welcome Tim - we did have this in a discussion thread but I cant remember the outcome also we had a bit of a hiccup with the hosting and lost quite a few threads ill have a look and see if it is still there.

 

Feel free to post some photos - before and after attempting the puddle would be good ;)

[tom_gr7]

back in my army days, we used to drive land rovers through rivers/fords/puddles with the water coming over the bonnet... that's without snorkel gear. Those things were great off the road although terrible on the road.

[Gambit]

Hi welcome to S.O.C 

My life certainly not as interesting as your's, I did meet Craig charles in a pub once and had a pint with him though :) 

And only car I have tried to get through a very deep puddle was a cortina estate where it got stuck and stayed there for a week :D 

[BlackBosh]

I'd take my impreza through 15" with standard ride height. Not too fast so the water doesn't get pushed up the grill. Be warned I am yet to learn from my own mistakes on this one even though I nearly flooded my Citroen ax when the water came up to the windscreen and soaked the air filter. I couldn't open the throttle past 25% for a week after that as it bogged down like a 2 stroke haha. (I wasn't into mechanic side of things back then and let it sort itself out)

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk