Recently I drove through a fairly deep puddle in the road and now my 2002 Toyota Echo is acting a little funny. I was driving home on a back road at night after a very rainy day and did not see a massive puddle in the road. I think the water made it up over my hood but I made it through without stopping. The next day the temperature dropped below freezing. I was concerned but the car was not showing any problems. Last night I was driving home again at night and noticed that when my car shifted into low gear it would shudder and lose power. I pulled into my parking space at my apartment and as I was slowing down to turn in, the car began to jerk and jump. I came to a complete stop in the spot and left the car in drive. The engine would drop in RPMs and the car lurched and jumped. It felt like a slipping clutch but the car is an automatic. When I put the car in park the engine idled normally. What did I do?
Any ideas are helpful?
How long have you driven the vehicle since driving through the puddle???
It’s possible that you got some ignition componet(s) wet. You should also have stored some failuer codes in the ECU. Stop by the local parts store (some of them read the codes for free), get the codes read, and post them here. Or simply make an appointment with your regular shop.
I’ve only driven it twice since the puddle.
Also the check engine light is NOT on.
It’s probably just wet. My daughter drove through a deep puddle some time back, had the same symptoms, and I just changed out the plug wires, rotor and distr. cap. Sometimes it’s easier to do that than to try to figure out exactly which is faulting (it’s usually the wires).
I’d take the car out for a long run…no less then an hour. That should dry it out.
it may dry out with a little more driving.
Perhaps. The problem is that once an arc has happened it forms a “carbon trail”. Carbon is conductive, and it creates a high resistance circuit that can arc more readily in future use.
Thanks guys I really appreciate the input. I’m hoping that the puddle wasn’t a red herring. Is there anything else that could be causing the transmission to act that way?
I’d suspect the engine long before the tranny.
It could be the lock up torque converter trying to lock up or not un lock when its supposed to. You might have gotten some water in an associated connector or solenoid. You might have gotten some water into the transmission too but that is not very likely, but worth looking at anyway.
Drove it again to the library and back tonight. Problem only showed up for a few seconds when pulling into the library. Tried to replicate it when I got home but couldn’t. Maybe the water dried up as suggested earlier.
You got the wires wet…let em dry by themselves or assist it. Even worse you could have water in the spark plug wells…this will make the wires arc out on the valve cover…creating a miss. If you have coil over plug the same scenario takes place…and dryness is whats needed. If you want pull the wires/coils and make sure every connection is dry…it will go away.
Blackbird