LDV Reviews

This is a complex issue and CarsGuide does not give legal advice on matter such as this. However, from a practical standpoint, water on the road in puddles could conceivably enter the engine and cause damage if you managed to hit just the right puddle at just the right speed and at just the right angle to force water into the engine’s air intake system.

In any case, this would likely (as you are discovering) be considered accidental damage rather than a warranty issue as the problem wasn’t caused by a fault in the car’s materials or manufacture. Which means you might be better off tackling your insurance company to see if such damage is covered by your vehicle policy. Damage to a vehicle from (flood) water is much more likely to be an insurance job, so start there.

It’s a bit hard to imagine how removing and replacing a transmission could make an engine misfire or backfire. Unless, that is, you’ve managed to bump part of the engine’s electronic controllers, wiring, sensors or even something as simple as pinched or displaced a vacuum line somewhere in the engine bay. Incorrect ignition timing can make an engine do this, but, again, that’s nothing to do with the transmission.

It could even be a complete coincidence. But did the vehicle sit for any length of time while the transmission was being fixed? You might find the battery has discharged over time. Modern, electronically-controlled engines do not like low battery voltage and can run poorly as a result.

It’s likely that there’s a fuse that will control this circuit, but there’s also a chance that the same fuse might also disable other functions on the vehicle. The problem is probably being caused by the micro-switch in the door jamb that senses when the door is open and sounds that alarm you keep randomly hearing. The attempted break-in has probably either damaged or misaligned that micro-switch, which is the root problem here.

A better approach would be to fix, replace or realign the switch or the part of the door that contacts it. That will actually fix the fault, rather than put a band-aid on it.