Drove through water and now car chugs

A few months back I drove through a large puddle, probably less than a foot deep and my car stalled. It turned back on and drove home, however, I noticed a day or so later that the engine management light came on and would occasionally flash. When this happened my car would feel like it’s losing power and chug for a few seconds, then go back to normal again. A few months later and it’s still doing the exact same thing. I have had a couple drives in it where the light doesn’t come on at all and the car is fine, but it has its moments where it still chugs. I have no idea about cars and my dad said it would be fine and to leave it to dry out for a bit, but months later and still having the same issue so thought I’d come here to see if anyone knows what the issue could possibly be or how much it might cost to fix

Reply 1

RoyalSheepy

Original post by JellyFox

You better pray something has only unplugged as leaving it for months may have made the issue worse if water was ingested.

It's hard to say, take it to a mechanic. Did you notice any issues with power or consumption?

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 2

IWMTom

I hear if you fill your cylinders with rice it absorbs the moisture and fixes the problem.

Reply 3

Advisor

Sounds like water has entered your exhaust. How much damage is done depends on how far the water reached.

In some cases, engine management lights are triggered by emissions sensors, so my first port of call would be to investigate the catalytic converter and the emissions management system and take it from there.

Reply 4

PTMalewski

Ignore the posts above. Only jokes and incompetents.

Most likely some ignition problem coincidented with the splash, or some sensor has failed.

Read the error codes. If the owner's manual doesn't include a procedure how to 'flash' it out, have the car plugged in to an interface at a garage, and ask them what is the error code. Each number means a paticular failure related to sensor, ignition, or injection system. The ECU in not capable of detecting other problems, but it's going to be one of these.

Reply 5

george_0liver29

Original post by PTMalewski

I second this, further to what the above suggests, you can use a '2 Pedal Method' on some vehicles, Vauxhalls, for example, which will flash the OBDII Code out on the dash, you can then write this down and google the exact issue. Since you drove through the water a while ago any damage at this point would be a sensor, chugging will happen if the ECU (Engine Control Unit) recieves bad input from, say, a MAF, or Lambda sensor, the chug comes because it'll be trying to calculate combustion timing and injection timing based on values which arent correct. Contrary to the first replies there shouldn't be any mechanical damage. If an engine takes in water the failure will be almost instantaneous, the pistons will 'hydraulic' - the effect by which the water (incompressible) cracks the head and or con rods. So its definitely nothing too severe to worry about if you've been motoring around for this long since it happened. TLDR: It's a sensor which is throwing a code, likely Lambda or other exposed sensor. Use a cheap OBDII scanner to obtain the code. May save you over a garage.

Reply 6

RoyalSheepy

Original post by PTMalewski

How is advising them to take it to a mechanic “jokes and incompetents.”

If anything my post is probably more useful than the garbage you’ve managed to smash onto your keyboard.

If you don’t know the problem of their car for certain then advise the user to take it to a mechanic. From the sounds of your posts you’re no where near a qualified one.

Reply 7

PTMalewski

Original post by RoyalSheepy

How is advising them to take it to a mechanic “jokes and incompetents.”

I could have said that advising to take a car to mechanic is like advising someone to eat something when hungry, but actually I just scrolled down too quickly and missed your post.

Original post by RoyalSheepy

If anything my post is probably more useful than the garbage you’ve managed to smash onto your keyboard.

How is checking the ECU error codes, or suspecting a problem with ignition garbage?
If a car is occasionally losing power for a moment and 'chugs', any mechanic will check the error codes, because ECU is capable of detecting tens of problems, it's the quickest thing to do.
Rapid, short loses of power and chugging often is a result of misfire, thus it's logical to check the ignition system first, as it can be responsible, is the easiest to check and cheapest to repair, out of all possible reasons, happens most often.

Original post by RoyalSheepy

If you don’t know the problem of their car for certain then advise the user to take it to a mechanic.

Sure, let's not tell him anything hoping on blind luck, that a mechanic won't rip him off.
Assuming it's a petrol car (OP hasn't specified), a faulty high voltage circuit, ignition coil, distributor, failing crankshaft position sensor, lambda sensor, low fuel pressure or faulty injectors can all give similar symptoms in description, so even if it's some trivial problem with a faulty cable, a mechanic could rip him off for hundreds of pounds, claiming eg. a whole set of injectors has failed and the victim would never find out.
If the OP asks what error code ECU returns, then at least the mechanic will be less likely to lie to him.

Original post by RoyalSheepy

From the sounds of your posts you’re no where near a qualified one.

Of course not. When I repair my car, it gets repaired. When a qualified mechanic repairs my car, 4 times out of 10 the job is done wrong or not at all, or something else gets broken by the mechanics, and in the end I have to repair it myself anyway.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 8

Reality Check

Original post by PTMalewski

Sure, let's not tell him anything hoping on blind luck, that a mechanic won't rip him off.
Faulty high voltage circuit, ignition coil, distributor, failing crankshaft position sensor, lambda sensor, low fuel pressure or faulty injectors can all give similar symptoms in description, so even if it's some trivial problem with a faulty cable, a mechanic could rip him off for hundreds of pounds, claiming eg. a whole set of injectors has failed and the victim would never find out.
If the OP asks what error code ECU returns, then at least the mechanic will be less likely to lie to him.

You do seem to have a very low opinion of mechanics: they always seem to be looking for ways to lie and fleece you. Is this from personal experience? I have to say my experience of our local garage is quite the reverse. I trust the lads in there 101% to diagnose and fix the problem for a fair price, which they've been doing for years. It's not in their interests to fleece me because I won't go back and will bad-mouth them to others - and this is true of all garages I've used over the years.

Reply 9

PTMalewski

Original post by Reality Check

I have bad experiences from where I come from, and now the UK has a couple million of people from there and countries with similar work ethics, that's why I wouldn't trust a mechanic in the UK either.

I had problems with several garages, both factory services and private ones. The 'funniest' of them were as these:

-after head gasket replacement a garage didn't notice the thermostat was locked, and the cooling system wasn't working. The engine heavily overheated on the first drive, a person who doesn't have a habit of controlling the gauges, could have had the freshly repaired engine blown again. Still I might have saved it by turning the heater to full so it cooled down a bit.

-soon after it turned out they also had broken a plug on coolant temp. to ECU sensor, which wasn't visible but in Rover K16 for some mysterious reason causes idle rpms to keep high on 2-3, once they stayed 4 thousand rpms. A few mechanics and twenty car enthusiasts had no idea what happened and we couldn't check it because the motor didn't have OEBD and nobody in the whole region had interface that could communicate with Rover's MEMS 1.6

-the same garage soon refused to carry out standard brakes maintenance on my car, saying they would not be able to buy the necessary parts. I got pissed off, and went to a garage on the other side of the street, seeing the model similar to mine was just being serviced there. I asked the mechanic to check and repair the brakes.
When I came to pick up the car, the mechanic took the money, specifically claimed the rear brake cylinders were in the worst condition. Guess what happened next?
The car failed MOT, as the braking force on rear wheels was 0,1kN on one wheel and 0,0kN on the other!
When I dismantled the rear brakes myself, it became clear that nobody looked to the recently, as the brake pistons and cylinders were so corroded they were fused together. Of course I had no problems buying new ones, ordered Textar cylinders that came two days later.
When I replaced them myself, with new cylinders I lubricated, the engineer inspecting the car was surprised that 'the model can have so strong rear brakes', which suggests other cars were just not maintained properly.

-Fiat factory service failed to notice that a car repaired after a big crash still had a bended steering rod. I noticed the handling was wrong, the test driver insisted the car was okay, but eventually they agreed to check the car. Then they measured geometry with wheels turned, for the first time and discovered that indeed geometry was messed up.They also grinded the bonnet in such a way that normally none would have noticed, but I’m very fuzzy about bodywork condition so I inspected the car carefully.
On another occasion they tightened the wheels so heavily the bolts broke when I was unscrewing the wheel. It turned out they put 140N on bolts, why it should have been 105N.

Recently the Fiat required head gasket replacement, I sent it to a garage that messed things with Rover a couple of years earlier, but it seemed the best in city anyway, and one of only a few that could take the job. They returned the car with air filter ripped off. It wasn't visible, but I noticed something was wrong with the sound, the engine was taking unfiltered air, as they broke one of the mountings, and the filter went off the throttle.
Then after suspension and brakes repairs, they forgot to plug in fluid level sensor.

There are more problems like this, for example a garage that specialises in changing tires, never gets the air pressure right. For example the manual says it should be 2.0 bars on the front and 1.8 on the rear, and they always pump 2.2 on all wheels. I alwas have to correct it, because the car is short, without ESP, and on rain with such pressures it's dangerous.

I've talked to many guys from car club, and they've all experienced similar problems. A guy whom I've known personally almost got killed when brakes in his car failed completely after brakes repair.