Question We have recently had a flash flood and my car got caught in the middle of it when I was driving home. I went through a puddle that turned out to be a lake and my check engine light came on. I read the code and it was P0300, multiple cylinder misfire.
I then cleaned water out of my intake and drove it about 1/4 mile home. I changed my oil immediately for fear of ruining bearings. Anyways, I am not sure where to go from here. The trouble code is gone, however I have a really rough idle and a great amount of hesitation. The car feels like it is jittering when I drive it (I have only driven it a mile or two). I am just letting it sit now in hopes that the water will dry out. It does not smoke at all, so I don't think the block is blown or a gasket is blown.
Anyways, I have a service manual and want to perform a compression check, however it is unclear as to whether I can leave my intake manifold off the engine while cranking. As you know, you cannot access the rear bank of spark plugs with the manifold on. So my questions to you are:
(1) Can I leave my manifold off while cranking the engine?
(2) How long should I wait for the car to dry out and hopefully correct the jittering?
(3) Do you think I may have jumped time, since the car hesitates and provides poor power?
(4) How often is it that sucking water will warrant a rebuild/expensive repair?
As always, thanks for your time and expertise. . .
AnswerHi Charlie,
It isn't hydrolocked because that means there is so much water in any cylinder as to prevent the movement of the piston. I would not get into trying a compression test yet, rather wait until it dries out some more. I have not dismantled the manifold on the V-6 but if you can't do a compression test without removing the manifold then it clearly has to be removed to test all 6 cylinders. I suspect that is the way to do a compression test, but why not wait a bit, like a couple of days? Open up the distributor cap to help get water to evaporate out of it.
You can check the timing by setting the engine on TDC and observe the camshaft timing marks by removing the two round covers at the front of each bank of cylinders and looking at the marks on the pulleys as compared to hash marks on the top edges of the cover housings. If you see the marks are 180 degrees out, then rotate the engine one full rotation again to TDC.
I don't know the various possibilities of sucking water or their probability distribution. So let it dry out some more and then check the compression and for any fault codes.
I am interested in learning what you find out, so write me back by using the "thank and rate" tab below.
Roland
