Do snorkels really work? To answer this is honestly a double edged sword.
Admittedly most people are purchasing a snorkel for their off-road vehicle simply because they think it looks cool. While I personally think they look stupid, that's not going to stop people from buying them. And then of course you have the people who buy them with grandiose plans of fording rivers, driving through floods, etc.
Well, I can tell you that while some of that might seem cool, reality is quite a bit different. While a snorkel will indeed allow you to submerge your TJ over the hood without the engine ingesting water, you're going to run into quite a bit of issues if you choose to take this path.
For one, water and electronics don't mix. If you were to really want to do this, you'd need to find a way to seal all your electronics and sensors very thoroughly. In addition, you'd need to make sure your transmission and differentials have the breather tubes in place and are also properly sealed. When you go through a river crossing with water up to your hood, water is going to get everywhere. Your electronics, your sensors, your PCM, etc. While some of these are "water resistant", none of them are actually meant to be submerged.
The typical snorkel situation will go exactly like this (and I can 99% guarantee this):
You and your friends decide to go off-roading. You decide to ford a river where water is submerging the hood. You do this for 10 minutes or so, then make it to the other end (assuming the current doesn't sweep you away). You freeze your ass off, drive home soaking wet, and ultimately look back at the fun day you had.
The next day you go to start your TJ up and it either doesn't start, or it starts and then immediately begins running poorly and throwing check engine lights. You get your OBDII scanner out and find a plethora of codes pointing to all sorts of different issues.
Why is this happening you ask? Because you submerged your engine and all the electronics in water. You now have sensors and other electronics that have water still in them, or have been shorted out due to the water.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard this exact same story, and I can't even begin to imagine how many more times I will hear it.
Water isn't good for electronics, period. I'm not saying it's going to fry everything, but it is going to cause some lasting issues that will likely cost you money and be difficult to troubleshoot. This isn't a maybe either, it's a guarantee.
The only vehicles I've ever seen that a snorkel is truly very effective on would be the older mechanical diesels that lacked all of the modern day electronics, computers, etc., that even our TJs have. On those things you can submerge the engine in water and not have to worry about much simply due to the way those old diesels are built.
So to answer the original question, yes, a snorkel works in principal, but the side effects you will encounter from going through water crossings are going to really come back to bite you in the ass, I promise. Doing it once is one thing, but if you make your TJ a vehicle that you use to regularly cross deep water, I can promise you that you're going to be in for a lot of nasty surprises.
Admittedly most people are purchasing a snorkel for their off-road vehicle simply because they think it looks cool. While I personally think they look stupid, that's not going to stop people from buying them. And then of course you have the people who buy them with grandiose plans of fording rivers, driving through floods, etc.
Well, I can tell you that while some of that might seem cool, reality is quite a bit different. While a snorkel will indeed allow you to submerge your TJ over the hood without the engine ingesting water, you're going to run into quite a bit of issues if you choose to take this path.
For one, water and electronics don't mix. If you were to really want to do this, you'd need to find a way to seal all your electronics and sensors very thoroughly. In addition, you'd need to make sure your transmission and differentials have the breather tubes in place and are also properly sealed. When you go through a river crossing with water up to your hood, water is going to get everywhere. Your electronics, your sensors, your PCM, etc. While some of these are "water resistant", none of them are actually meant to be submerged.
The typical snorkel situation will go exactly like this (and I can 99% guarantee this):
You and your friends decide to go off-roading. You decide to ford a river where water is submerging the hood. You do this for 10 minutes or so, then make it to the other end (assuming the current doesn't sweep you away). You freeze your ass off, drive home soaking wet, and ultimately look back at the fun day you had.
The next day you go to start your TJ up and it either doesn't start, or it starts and then immediately begins running poorly and throwing check engine lights. You get your OBDII scanner out and find a plethora of codes pointing to all sorts of different issues.
Why is this happening you ask? Because you submerged your engine and all the electronics in water. You now have sensors and other electronics that have water still in them, or have been shorted out due to the water.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard this exact same story, and I can't even begin to imagine how many more times I will hear it.
Water isn't good for electronics, period. I'm not saying it's going to fry everything, but it is going to cause some lasting issues that will likely cost you money and be difficult to troubleshoot. This isn't a maybe either, it's a guarantee.
The only vehicles I've ever seen that a snorkel is truly very effective on would be the older mechanical diesels that lacked all of the modern day electronics, computers, etc., that even our TJs have. On those things you can submerge the engine in water and not have to worry about much simply due to the way those old diesels are built.
So to answer the original question, yes, a snorkel works in principal, but the side effects you will encounter from going through water crossings are going to really come back to bite you in the ass, I promise. Doing it once is one thing, but if you make your TJ a vehicle that you use to regularly cross deep water, I can promise you that you're going to be in for a lot of nasty surprises.
