Brief stuttering and hard to start after heavy rain

[Ed.]

Hi,

The car's been faultless until recently when we've had really heavy rainfall. I had driven 30 miles in pouring conditions quite comfortably but within minutes of home the car started to hesitate while in 3rd at around 30mph. As soon as I revved it and let the clutch back out I continued the rest of the journey without problem.

This morning, again after heavy rainfall last night, the car took about 3 attempts to finally sit on a steady idle. It fired, stuttered, then stalled. Once it started however, it was fine and when I started up to come home after a nice warm day, the car started instantly.

Any ideas what causes this? It's a Vec C 2.2 SRi petrol. Another thing that's nagging me is when I filled up with fuel, the pump was coughing as it was trying to pump in so I replaced the nozzle and went to another pump. Would that be it? I'm still on the same tank of fuel.

Thanks for any wisdom.

 

[vocky]

could be a wet air filter or a dodgy batch of fuel dunno..

 

[xinitialz]

my guess is dody batch of fuel... possibly water in fuel

 

[Ed.]

could be a wet air filter or a dodgy batch of fuel dunno..

Old post I know but I found the solution and it may help others.

It was a wet air filter. After nay any problems for a while I decided one weekend to poke around under the hood and saw that the airbox had no ducting or feed to it. I pulled the air filter out and it was minging and damp, no surprise considering the rain we've all had lately.

Solution: I fitted a replacement K&N panel filter and made up a cold air feed with an old vacuum cleaner hose and some cable ties. I've left the hose a few mm from the airbox and the intake section is as near to the bottom of the front of the car as I could get it.

All seems great and I swear I can feel the extra 1hp. Beep beep...

 

[dodger]

glad you mangaed to sort the problem out

 

[vocky]

I had it happen to me on a Mondeo, the filter was soaking wet and I had to wait five hours for a recovery truck