Stuck in a flood

mk1_nutter

mk1_nutter

Member
So i was driving the car and had to go through a water logged area (I live in Wraysbury). The car in front moved away creating a wave and my car came to a halt and stalled.

I attempted to re-start the car straight away and it wouldn't start. Everything on the dash went out. I waited with 2ft of water around me. I tried to start the car a few times but had no luck. After an hour the car started an i drove home. The car drove home perfectly fine. I found some water in the passenger foot-well compartment but nothing major.

The following morning I started the car and it seemed to be running on 1/2 cylinders and bellowing out white smoke, bearing in mind i did this at 7am.

I had to get to work so i drove the car. After 1/4 the car drove perfectly fine. The same thing happened when i left work that evening. On my way home i bought a new air filter and oil. I serviced the car that evening and checked the airbox pipework for moisture. The filter was definitely wet.

The puzzling thing for me now is that on a cold start the engine runs of 2/3 cylinders but after a 1/4 mile its perfectly fine for the 40 mile journey too work.

I am going to scan it shortly this evening hopefully. I have spoken to my insurance who want to take the car for assessment.

Does anyone know what could be at fault.
 
mk1_nutter said:
So i was driving the car and had to go through a water logged area (I live in Wraysbury). The car in front moved away creating a wave and my car came to a halt and stalled.

I attempted to re-start the car straight away and it wouldn't start. Everything on the dash went out. I waited with 2ft of water around me. I tried to start the car a few times but had no luck. After an hour the car started an i drove home. The car drove home perfectly fine. I found some water in the passenger foot-well compartment but nothing major.

The following morning I started the car and it seemed to be running on 1/2 cylinders and bellowing out white smoke, bearing in mind i did this at 7am.

I had to get to work so i drove the car. After 1/4 the car drove perfectly fine. The same thing happened when i left work that evening. On my way home i bought a new air filter and oil. I serviced the car that evening and checked the airbox pipework for moisture. The filter was definitely wet.

The puzzling thing for me now is that on a cold start the engine runs of 2/3 cylinders but after a 1/4 mile its perfectly fine for the 40 mile journey too work.

I am going to scan it shortly this evening hopefully. I have spoken to my insurance who want to take the car for assessment.

Does anyone know what could be at fault.
Click to expand...

HI,

I live in Wraysbury too !!

If your car did this the first time you started it after the flood then the white "smoke" would probably be steam (possibly from water that has filled the exhaust perhaps?

But these A2s don't like deep water and can suck up water into the cylinders and do massive damage (water doesn't compress).

If that would have happened on your car then you wouldn't have been able to drive it or even start it.

But if your car is a petrol A2, which would seem likely, because diesels don't cut out when wet (unless they suck up water as I mentioned) then you , may be just suffering from damp electrics (especially HT leads).

When you park overnight the damp can cause the HT leads to arc across and give similar problems to that you describe.

When you have driven for a bit the heat of the engine dries it all out and so, no arcing and smooth running.

Do you park with water / damp grass, under the car?

If you have a diesel then forget all of the above it doesn't apply.

But if yours IS a petrol then the solution may be simple. Just lift off the bonnet and spray the electrics with WD40 (a good dose) especially the plug leads and ht leads and coil.

This is going to sound silly if yours is a diesel !!!

Steve B
 
mk1_nutter said:
Hi Steve,

I hope your are not stuck in the village!

I knew i was forgetting something. Its a 1.4 tdi
Click to expand...

Our house is now an Island !! and there is water under the floorboards, but it is not as bad as others (but we were about to exchange contracts and that looks like it will be off now)

Forget all of the advice I gave above, that only applies to a petrol, but the white smoke could be steam? There is little else that causes white smoke apart from unburnt diesel and I am not sure what would trigger that.

If you pop over I can run a VCDS scan on it and see what error codes you have!!!

PM me and I will let you know my address.


Steve B
 
Cheers Steve, I have just had it on VCDS and no errors came up. It had only sat for 90 minutes too cool down.

I have a feeling it might be glow plugs so ill get 3 new ones in for peace of mind.
 
mk1_nutter said:
Cheers Steve, I have just had it on VCDS and no errors came up. It had only sat for 90 minutes too cool down.

I have a feeling it might be glow plugs so ill get 3 new ones in for peace of mind.
Click to expand...

it won't be glowplugs so perhaps you could save the cost of replacing them.

Once the car is running the glowplugs play no part, so if it has symptoms after starting the glowplugs cant be the cause.

Steve B
 
If anyone thinks that it could be glowplugs then there is and easy way for them to prove / disprove that theory.

If your car starts normally and has no problems (unlike MK1s), try the following, turn the ignition key all the way without giving the glowplugs chance to even warm up, the car will either start normally (in this mild weather that is entirely possible) or will take a few more turns to start and be a little rough for a second or two.
It should not belch out white smoke or other symptoms

Just trying to prove / disprove my theory and perhaps save MK1 some money.

Steve B
 
Could white smoke result from fuel contamination (with water/too high moisture)?
Could there be a little water in the cylinder? Not enough to break it but enough to cause problems?
If you know which cylinder is not firing I guess switching the glow plug with another would show if the glow plug caused the problem?
 
I hate to be a bringer of doom. But it is quite likely you have a bent conrod due to one cylinder hydro locking. I had this on a range rover a few years back.
I hope im wrong. Mike
 
a2sumo said:
I hate to be a bringer of doom. But it is quite likely you have a bent conrod due to one cylinder hydro locking. I had this on a range rover a few years back.
I hope im wrong. Mike
Click to expand...

I Agree, but only if it really has sucked up water into the cylinder, that would destroy a cylinder or two.

But it wouldn't run well when warmed up and I believe that it is running perfectly well when warm?

Steve B
 
I think the answer to this puzzle is in the OP's original post - the air filte was wet.
That would indicate the engine has sucked up some water on the induction stroke and this is clearly manifested by the "white smoke" evidence.
This is the "burning of the water in the combustion process and is very different from steam. Un-burnt diesel is ejected from the exhaust in the form of black smoke.

I would suggest a compression test with the engine both hot and cold to determine any damage due to hydro pressure.

blue skies
tony
 
On a cold diesel engine there can be insufficient heat in the cylinders to even partially burn excess fuel so it just vaporises and comes out the exhaust as white smoke. Once the engine is warm, excess fuel partially burns and is emitted as black smoke.

The grey area is whether the engine is being overfuelled when cold or if the fuelling is OK but there is insufficient heat generated on the compression stroke to burn the fuel.

Cheers Spike
 
spike said:
On a cold diesel engine there can be insufficient heat in the cylinders to even partially burn excess fuel so it just vaporises and comes out the exhaust as white smoke. Once the engine is warm, excess fuel partially burns and is emitted as black smoke.

The grey area is whether the engine is being overfuelled when cold or if the fuelling is OK but there is insufficient heat generated on the compression stroke to burn the fuel.

Cheers Spike
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Hi Spike,

Not disagreeing at all, just curious and wanting to confirm my logic.

I think I am right that the glow plugs (per-heaters) are on a very short timer and so they go off BEFORE you start the car (that is why we wait for the glow plug icon to go off before starting the car, that indicates that they are "up to heat" and also why they are sometimes called PRE-heaters)


So the second the car starts, the glow plugs are off (if not before) so I am at a loss as to why any problem with the glow plugs could give these symptoms.
I believe that they only trip in to start the car and so if the car has started, any fault with the glow plugs would have no effect on smoke or poor running etc.?
But a fault would make the car difficult to start when cold, that is it surely?

Is it because if the car has been cranking for a while without starting, there is an excess of unburned fuel in the cylinders etc.? I could imagine that might then cause a little smoke and rough running for a bit. But the OP didn't mention any difficulty starting (I think) so if the engine fires up first time then I definitely can't see what any fault in the glow plugs would cause these symptoms? But if the engine WAS turning over for a while before starting then I agree with you 100%

Hopefully you can see my logic and so understand why I am asking, it is certainly not that I am doubting what you said at all. I just like to figure things out (being a computer analyst means that it is difficult not to analyse stuff fully, after doing it all day every working day for thirty four years on systems, it is difficult to "switch off")

Cheers
Steve B
 
Hi,

I can attest to the ability of Diesel engines to generate white smoke. Many years ago, the head gasket of my first car (a French Diesel) went. This caused the sealed cooling system to overpressures and effectively spray water into one of the cylinders through the leak in the gasket between the cooling system and the cylinder.
The net result was that all 6 lanes across both sides of the A4 near Brentford had visibility reduced to zero. I only noticed once I stopped at traffic lights and the cloud of smoke caught up with me!
The temporary fix was to unscrew the cap on the cooling system which prevented it getting pressurised and so reduced the amount of water entering the cylinder. It was very lumpy on idle as only 3 cylinders were working.
Other than needing a new head gasket and an oil flush and change, there wasn’t any damage to the engine.

I believe aerobatic planes use Diesel to generate the white smoke trails when doing displays so it obviously works quite well. They inject Diesel into the hot exhaust of the engine where it vaporises and creates white smoke. I guess if the fuel isn’t being burnt at all in the cylinder of the engine it will vaporise on the way out and cause the same effect.

Regards

Andrew
 
was there water in the top air pipe?

I would check the oil for water then will see what you say.

I thought I had hydrolocked mine,well the insurance did but I hadn't a sure fire way for them to write a car off that shouldn't have been
 
Hi Steve

I added the comments about white smoke to provide an alternative view to the 'steam' theory. Vapourised diesel would smell quite acrid so hopefully this would allow the owner to understand if there was a fuelling / combustion / compression problem or there was just water in the works.

Glow plug technology is constantly changing as it moves from being a pure starting aid to a means of reducing emissions in the engine warm-up period. Ref the attached, page 68 covers the A2 glowplug system and it says they can stay on for up to 3 minutes after the engine has started. (I suspect the light is only an indicator for pre-heat as I've never seen it stay on after the engine fires up) Although not covered in this early document, I think the 90 TDi has an even smarter controller (with low voltage glowplugs) so it probably stays on even longer in very cold climates.
Regards cold starting capability, the A2 is very good as I had 2 failed glowplugs and it hardly affected starting in the -5C temps of that particular winter

http://www.volkspage.net/technik/ssp/ssp/SSP_223.pdf

Cheers Spike
 
Hi Spike

Thank you so much for that.

Your clarification is a huge help.

I really appreciate the extra info that you have given.

Now I have a fuller picture of how the set up works on the A 2 it will help me understand symptoms like these.

I am so glad you didn't take my comments as a criticism or argument. I just wanted to understand the logic and I do now thanks to your input.

Thank you for this and all of the other help and advice you have given us in the past.

Cheers
Steve B
 
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