Potholed, suggestions?

[froodawg]

This morning I happened to be in a bit of a rush to get to work, and took an alleyway to avoid some roadwork. Unfortunately the day before had dumped over a foot of water on my city and left a puddle about 1ft/1ft in the middle of this alleyway which I stupidly ran right through. Turns out it was about a foot deep.

Immediately after hitting this hole I hear some chugging see a small amount of white smoke coming from the driver's side near the wheel. Pull over, kill the car, look around ... I see a mitsubishi belt of some kind sitting in the middle of the road and I pick it up. Look under the hood, can't see any visible damage, look at the undercarriage and see another belt nestled on a protective plate near the front driver side wheel.

Stupidly enough I start the engine back up and my oil light and brake light are illuminated, and I don't have power steering. Moved it about 20 ft to safety and walked to work.

So my question is this, wtf was the white smoke and chugging noise that didn't continue after I shut the engine down the first time? I can only guess that at least one of the belts was for the alternator. Am I gonna have to get a flatbed and tow this thing?

 

[spooled_u]

white smoke is usually coolant. You might have knocked loose a radiator hose coming from the water pump, or completely busted the pump itself.

I had tihs happen to me in a 98 GSX, all my accessory belts got all tangled in eachother. Just remove all the belts and see what kind of damage you got. If they got entwined in your timing belt, and you tried to move the car under its own power, you might have knocked out some valves.

However, the oil filter housing is down there too, you could have knocked something loose in there and are just down some oil. Won't know until you pop it open.

 

[froodawg]

Update: Had a flatbed tow the car to a friend of a friend's shop. After looking at it, he concluded that two belts needed to be replaced and the harmonic balancer needed to be replaced as well, apparently the shock of the pothole was enough to crush it. The price he quoted me seemed a bit steep, should I have him looking for signs of anything else while he's got everything torn down? ($450)

Maybe I should be looking for a second opinion...

 

[Zenja]

You should easily be able to replace the accessory belts and pulley yourself for much less money than that. I don't know how much shops charge for this kind of stuff but that seems totally excessive.

 

[KazooGS-T]

I would understand if he were re-doing timing too, but it sounds like your "friend" is not trying to help you, he is trying to make some serious cash for very little work.