Buying car parts in Houston

Standing water is an ordinary condition

Houston is flat, the water table is high, and the drainage is perpetually behind. An afternoon storm can put several inches across a road in minutes, and a routine commute here includes driving through water that would be a notable event in most cities.

What that reaches, in order of how often it bites:

1. 1Wheel bearings. A hot hub plunged into water draws a small amount past the seal as it cools and the air inside contracts. Once is nothing. Weekly for years is why bearings here fail at mileages that make no sense on paper.
2. 2Brake hardware. Rotors cool unevenly, and repeated wet-then-hot cycling accelerates corrosion between the rotor hat and the hub — felt as a pedal pulsation and blamed on a warped rotor.
3. 3Connectors low on the vehicle. ABS sensors, ride height sensors, parking sensors and anything mounted near the bottom of a wheel arch.
4. 4The air intake. Water past the filter is a hydrolocked engine, and it happens every year to somebody who followed the vehicle in front into water they could not judge.

A commute built by having no zoning

Houston sprawls further than almost any American metro, and the commute reflects it. Long distances at highway speed punctuated by long periods stationary.

That is a demanding combination. The highway miles accumulate hours at load on bearings, joints and the drivetrain. The stationary periods are the cooling system's worst case — high ambient, air conditioning at full load, no airflow through the radiator.

It also means a breakdown is a long way from home. The parts worth replacing on age rather than on failure here are the ones that end a journey: battery, starter, alternator, water pump, belt and tensioner.

Humidity that never lets up

Houston is among the most humid major cities in the country, and the cooling season runs most of the year.

Almost all of the air conditioning compressor's work goes into condensing moisture out of the air rather than lowering its temperature, which is a duty cycle far beyond what the temperature alone implies. The evaporator stays wet, which is where the summer smell comes from, and a cabin filter changed on a real interval is most of the prevention.

Humidity is also the corrosion mechanism here, because there is no road salt at all. It works on connectors, grounds and aluminium rather than on structure — so a Houston car has a sound underside and green connectors.

Buying a flood car by accident

This city puts a large number of water-damaged vehicles into the used market after every major event, and not all of them are titled as such.

Look for silt in the seat rails and the spare wheel well, corrosion on connectors under the carpet, a musty smell that air freshener is covering, and rust on bare metal in places that never get wet — seat frames, seat belt bolts, the underside of the dashboard. Water damage to electronics appears months later and it is not repairable in any economic sense.