The black car driven by Bo John Schneider, also carrying Daisy, Uncle Jesse and Cooter, crashes down heavily after its jump, and clearly gets smashed on its front left side. But by the time they arrive, the car is as good as new.
In the opening scene the General Lee gets stuck in the creek. The next shot shows Cooter getting out of his Jeep but his pant legs are already wet. Cooter had not yet been in the water. BH.
The bear trap is tethered merely by a light-duty playground-swing chain, so there is no way that it could reliably "hold a 500-pound bear", especially as strong as those big bruins are when they're good and mad.
Turns out the money was hidden not that far from the reach of the river, as shown in a scene where the flowing river courses its way in the background. Had there actually been a flood five years ago, all would have been swept clear away. Granted, this might be debatable, depending on the magnitude of the flood, but the script indicates it to have been major. And right now, Luke (Tom Wopat) finds a single stack of notes afloat in the river. Only the one. Never is it explained how only that one stack got into the river, which was in normal flow. Too far for the water to have reached it. Human involvement logically canceled out, it can be taken for granted nobody would have left 999 other stacks of bills just lying there. That leaves only the bears.
Camera visible mounted to driver's side of the General Lee when it jumps the old rotted bridge.
Cooter has a heavy tow-rope that is plenty long enough to reach from the shore to the General Lee, so there would be no need for him to back his Jeep into the stream to be nearer the G.L.