I am proud to say...
 

Just so you guys know. I went to the oceano dunes camping last night. The SVX handled soft sand better than most of the 4 wheel monster trucks. It traversed a flowing river that was over a foot and a half deep, hauled ass along the shoreline even did a couple "unintentional" fishtails. After I got over the fact that my Baby wasn't being ruined it was really fun. She got a power steam bath after to prevent my evil friend rust to attack her but I wanted to report she handled beautifully and proved to everyone that "that weird little car" can handle it better than their big trucks.

I hope you are exaggerating on the 18" of water!!

I know of a car that was lost in a small stream near here when they crossed it. The sand eroded around the tires and it got stuck. Then it was only a matter of time until the car was almost under the shallow stream. Be careful around water and sand! It can sneak up on you. :)

It can sneak up on you. I drowned the little red wagon once crossing a stream I had crossed at least 50 times before, only this time it was much deeper from the winter runoff - up to the hood. Had to climb out the window and push it out after it stalled. Pulled out the soaked air filter and cranked for a while. Coughed and sputtered a bit but started and ran fine after that. Luckily water had not made it into the intake to kill the engine.

I think I'll just buy a boat.


Randy ii

It's going to rust more quickly now. Cars aren't meant to be driven in deep water, and if you hit the water at any speed the water will shoot upwards and get into all sorts of places engineers never really designed it to..... and with salt water.. .it's a lot worse... with salt water and sand, worse yet. I'm never driving on the beach. :)

- Rob

I drove my 83 LTD into water over the hood. I thought it was only about 6in deep, but as I drove in it droped off. Not a good feeling seeing your headlights go under. I threw it in rev and tried to back out but it was to late, the engine just bogged and the battery ran down. It was like 10pm and 15degs and we were in the boonies. We had to walk a 1/2mile to some guys house and knock on his door to ask him to help. Fortunatlly he was really nice and had a 4WD truck and some chain. So he drove me back to the car, as I jumped back on to the car my shoe prints were instantly freezing on the trunk. I stuck my hand under the water to wrap the chain around the bumper(it was cold). He pulled it out, I opened the doors to let the water drain out, hooked up some jumper cables and it fired right off. Actually seemed to be running better! When back to his house to pick up my wife and 2year old daughter, and never tried to go wheeling in an 83 LTD ever again.