Those looking to buy a secondhand car in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei province, now run a high risk of buying a lemon. Early July’s floodwaters – and the dirt and grime that accompanied them – might soon be gone, but the damage they have left on the city’s car fleet will still be there.

Following freak weather that left large parts of Wuhan underwater, many vehicles stood waterlogged, if not almost entirely submerged. In some of the hardest-hit parts of the city, the floodwaters took days to subside.

Liu Cong, who is in charge of Hubei appraisals for car-buying website Renrenche.com, told Sixth Tone the company has its guard up for water-damaged cars, having recently held a training seminar to help appraisers learn to identify affected vehicles.

According to feedback from the company’s appraisers, flood-damaged cars are expected to account for large portion of Wuhan’s secondhand market in the near future, even though vehicles with a history of damage are not allowed to be advertised on the website. Liu said he expects the number of water-damaged secondhand cars he and his fellow appraisers see to increase by 50 percent in August.

July’s floods mean the rest of the car industry is working overtime, too. “Almost all of the Wuhan dealers providing post-sale services are now filled with cars waiting for repairs after being damaged by the flood,” Liu said.

Liu, who has more than seven years of experience in the secondhand car business, is taking precautions — he’s worried about cars from the flood turning up on his lot without a record of water damage. “There is a possibility that flood-damaged cars could be sold from one person to another, with the repair history being concealed from the buyer,” Liu said.

This would not be the first time sellers of damaged vehicles tried to pull the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting buyers. In February, The Beijing News reported more than a hundred cars that had been damaged in last August’s disastrous chemical explosion in Tianjin were sold at huge discounts. The article stated that some buyers were unaware of the damage history of the vehicles they purchased.

Peng Chao, general manager of Wuhan Anlijie Lexus Automobile Sales and Services Co. Ltd., told Sixth Tone the company has 40 recently sold cars currently undergoing repairs and another six that have been written off with insurers as total losses. He said the repairs will take anywhere between 10 days and a month, depending on availability of spare parts.

Peng’s dealership is located in one of the areas worst-hit by the flood. He said the company, established in 2012, had never witnessed an event like this before: “It’s the worst thing that’s happened in my whole career.”

(Header image: A man walks among flood-damaged cars set to be auctioned off in Wuhan, Hubei province, July 15, 2016. Xu Chuyun/VCG)