We’ve been seeing a lot of news footage of cars submerged in water. How to avoid buying one of those...

Countless cars were victims of Superstorm Sandy...

So what happens to them now? Unfortunately, a lot of them will find their way onto used car lots in the coming months – and they may be hard to spot. Consumer Reports has a few things to look for to spot a flood-damaged car:

• Check the seat-mounting screws to see if there is any evidence that they have been removed. To dry the carpets, the seats must be removed, not generally a part of normal maintenance.

• Inspect the lights. Headlights and taillights are expensive to replace, and a visible water line may still show on the lens or the reflector.

• Check the difficult-to-clean places, such as gaps between panels in the trunk and under the hood. Waterborne mud and debris may still appear in these places.

• Pop the hood and look for a telltale waterline on the sides and back of the engine. Places that are hard to access are less likely to have been cleaned.

• Look at the heads of any un-painted, exposed screws under the dashboard. Unpainted metal in flood cars will typically show signs of rust.

• Check if the rubber drain plugs under the car and on the bottom of doors look as if they have been removed recently. It may have been done to drain floodwater.