Car doesn't allow me to accelerate when raining/wet roads

ldevers9_192947
Sat, 22 Feb 2025 13:19:56 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

Hi, I drive a 2015 Hyundai Accent automatic with under 90,000km and am having trouble with the vehicle when it’s raining/really wet streets (puddles).

When the roads are wet my car drives fine at first but then starts shifting really hard, jerking, and not letting me speed up like it’s stuck in a low gear. I’ll apply gas, the tachometer will jump in response, but I get almost no power at all and maintain a speed as if I were just coasting and not applying any gas at all. No indicator lights shine on the dash when this happens. I thought maybe it was traction control on the edge of being activated (I’m grasping at straws), pulled over, turned that off but the car continued to drive in the same, silly way. Ill park the car and come back to it a day later when the weather is better and it runs like nothing happened.

When the issue first presented itself I thought the tranmission was slipping and took it to a tranmission mechanic. He ran diagnostics but it was completely clean. He flushed the transmission but found no clues in the fluid. He does not think it is a transmission issue.

I then took the car to a general mechanic. They said I needed new tires and it was the tires slipping. I urged them that I don’t think that’s what it was and that I know what slipping feels like. He said it might be the spark plugs. I don’t think he actually inspected the car as he only charged me for parts and the maintenance itself (which I am very upset about, but that’s for another day). That said, I’m not a mechanic so who am I to question them. I bought all new tires, I needed them anyway, and my spark plugs were changed. The issue persists.
A friend of mine has an ODB2 reader and the car still doesn’t code. I’ve also tried spraying water onto the spark plugs to see if there would be an arc (per youtube) but came up with nothing.

Please help me. I’m at my whits end after 2 mechanics. The car is still so low mileage I have a hard time trying to reconile buying a new vehicle when I don’t know if it’s just a cheap fix or not.

6 posts - 6 participants