As the nation starts to recover from the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the storms’ effects will soon be felt by car buyers nationwide as the flood-damaged cars of Louisiana and Mississippi begin to flow back into the market.

The National Automobile Dealers Association estimates Katrina may have damaged more than 400,000 cars and Rita has now affected tens of thousands more. While there is nothing illegal about selling flood-damaged cars, there are many alarming problems these cars can have.

After a car is flooded, most insurance companies will write off the car as a total loss, at which point the title of the car should be marked “flooded” or “salvage” depending on which state the car is registered in. Then, these cars are typically sold to junk yards or rebuilders, and do not pose major threats to the public.

However, some car owners do not have insurance, so this is not an option for them. Even others may simply hide the water damage in order to sell the car for more money than insurance companies offer them.

“Many times unscrupulous people buy the cars at cheap prices, clean them up and try to pass them off as clean cars for more money. Therefore, unknowing consumers are getting cars which are literally rotting from the inside out,” said Chris Basso, media relations manager for Carfax. The company tracks vehicle histories and sells their reports to consumers.

These “unscrupulous” sellers are more common than most may think. In fact, this past January, State Farm Insurance Company settled a $40 million lawsuit after auctioning off almost 30,000 cars without re-titling them as “flooded.”

Flooded cars usually have many problems. Water can ruin electronics, contaminate lubricants, threaten mechanical systems and destroy computer systems, air-bag controls, brakes, wipers and more.

While flooded cars may not be easy to spot, Katrina-flooded cars are easier to spot than most, said Paul Taylor, a chief economist for NADA. This is because the water from Lake Pontchartrain, which flooded New Orleans, is very brackish and will cause the cars to rust quickly.

But there are other ways, besides seeing rust, that consumers can spot flood damaged cars. These include removing a door panel to check the inside for a water line, looking under the carpet for dampness or mold and keeping an eye out for older cars with many newer components.

While there is no fool-proof way to spot a flooded car, buyers should be thorough in their inspections. Be sure to take the car to a trusted mechanic before purchase and run a vehicle history report.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau and Carfax have lists of all cars registered in areas declared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as flood-emergency zones. Even if a car has not been declared “flooded,” this information is still on its vehicle history report.

Basso warns that “buying a flooded-out car is almost never a safe purchase. In fact, one person we know of in Philadelphia bought a flood-damaged car and it literally blew up on them. [There were] nuts and bolts all over the road. You’re mixing water with electricity after all.”

David Gaebler, associate professor for the College of Law, said it is important to ask the seller if the vehicle has incurred any flood damage.

“In general,” he said, “there is no duty on one party’s behalf to tell the other party anything and everything they may want to know. But if the buyer asks and it is not told to them, it is an issue of fraud.”