I have a 1998 Honda Accord, after a heavy rain, the car fails to start. Also sputters when driving across puddles. It has about 75K miles, and my mechanic can’t diagnose w/o having the problem at hand? Any ideas I can let my mechanic know?
Maybe you need a new mechanic since reproducing a moisture related problem is not that hard even when its not raining. All you need is a spray bottle with some water to “have the problem at hand.” Start it up, and start misting ignition components. You can alternately cover one kind of thing or another to narrow the search.
I noticed that you found the other thread on an Accord with this problem, so the first thing to make sure of is the suggestions that were in there - spark plug wires are a common culprit, and checking the distributor cap if the car has one. Having a spark tester handy is also a good idea.
Yea, it sounds like cigroller is correct. A new mechanic should be able to find it quickly and correct it cheaply. Then again we don’t know what he has done and it is possible that is it no what we think it is. I would suggest you could just replace the plug wires yourself (very easy on most cars) or have the original mechanic do it. Then again you might want to just try a new mechanic. How trusting of this mechanic are you?
Wife owned a 96 Accord that had this problem. I took a spray bottle of water and started to spray ignition components when it was nice and dry outside and the car was running great. Spray one component at a time until it starts to run bad. In my wifes car it turned out to be a bad distributor cap. It was close to needing a tuneup so I just replaced the cap/rotor and plugs. Ran like a champ in dry or wet weather.