QuestionQUESTION: I have a 98 chys concord with 136,000 miles on it. In the last few months when its raining or alot of water on the roads, the car will start to bog down and then stall. After about 30-40 minutes it'll start right up and drive fine to get home and I will not drive it again until the roads are dry. My husband has changed the fuel pump/filter, censors, spark plugs/wires and it stopped for a awhile but now started again. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Lisa
ANSWER: Hi Lisa,
Have you checked for fault codes that the engine control module may have stored in its memory?
Turn the ignition key: "on-off-on-off-on and leave on" doing that in 5 seconds or less elapsed time, then watch the odometer window to see if the mileage reading is replaced by a 4-digit number preceded by a P. Let me know what you find if anything.
Did your husband replace both the camshaft and the crankshaft position sensors? What you describe about stalling/recovering after 30 minutes is characteristic of a failing of one of those sensors, but it would not likely be related to the humidity unless there was excess water splashing on the front or rear of the engine. Which engine (L) do you have?
When it stalls out, does it seem to occur after going through deep puddles, or is it just the humidity situation that does it? The spark plug wires are not particularly sensitive to moisture because they are low voltage-carrying wires only because each spark plug has its own high voltage coil. There are a couple of capacitors in that circuit so possibly one or the other of those is failing, but let us see if you get any fault codes.
Please read the PS (below) and respond to it.
Thanks,
Roland
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QUESTION: Yes it has done it after going through a large puddle. I will be leaving work in an hour or so and will try the on off thing and post later. Regarding the camshaft crankshaft sensors, he replaced one but not sure which one.
ANSWER: Well if the water splash-up shorted out a circuit related to a part of the engine that is monitored for faults, then a code might tell us which part. OK, I will await your progress on the code readout, and about which sensor was replaced. Thanks for the rating and nomination, and you can repeat both of those if you so-chose.
Thanks
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: I did the on off thing and 'done' is what came up. My husband changed the crankshaft sensor.
AnswerHi Lisa,
At this point, the only clue we have is the shut-off/then recovery in 40 minutes which is often the behavior when a rotational sensor is failing. If he would like to test this out he can experience it himself, then while it won't start test for the pulsation of voltage on the camshaft sensor's tan/yellow and black/light blue wires. If he rotates the engine via the crankshaft bolt and with the ignition switch in the run position he should see the voltage fluctuate between 5 and 0.3V several times per revolution. If not then the sensor is not working properly at that time. He could also look for excess water on the engine.
Thanks for the previous rating. You can do that again and click on "yes" for the nomination of me to be 'volunteer of the month if you choose to.
Roland
