Special Characters Being Scrambled

[dushan26]

If I insert special characters directly into the database using query_write it gets scrambled. For example

Caf? -> café

If I include special characters in a post it inserts just fine.

Is vBulletin doing something to encode special characters? What can I do to directly insert special characters into the database?

Thanks in advance.

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if anyone else has this problem I solved it using this tutorial:
http://xaviesteve.com/1223/issues-with-accents-and-strange-characters-in-php-mysql-solved/

Basically add $this->db->query_write("SET NAMES 'utf8'") before your query and make sure your fields are utf8_spanish