[thechat] Let's see if we can turn this into thecar...

Bob Davis bobd at members.evolt.org
Tue Jun 5 06:51:20 CDT 2001


On Monday, June 4, 2001, at 11:49 PM, Dave McLean wrote:

> I've got another one for you.  My '94 VW Golf is a really good car that
> performs well, except when it's raining. Basically when I'm coasting,
> everything's fine. When I press on the accelerator it chugs. The road is
> really wet and the water is coming up from regular spray into the 
> engine.
>

This only happens when it's raining?  Does it happen only when the rain 
is cold?
Do the lights dim?
Does your tach jump?
It could be a slight grounding problem.  My old Scirocco used to do that 
sometimes. The ground strap had corroded some. A replacement fixed the 
problems I was having with it.

It could be that you have a loose or failing connector for your fuel 
injection. Maybe water gets into it and you aren't getting the right 
impedance to the computer.

> The last time we took it in for service, they replaced the distributor 
> and
> rotor (I think) and probably the spark plugs.  But, it still chugs.
>

It could have been the distributor cap.  Look at it when it's wet - do 
you see any arcing around it? When it happens, try spraying the cap and 
the plug wire ends with WD-40 (it will displace the water around the are 
and stop the arcing.
If it's arcing, some of the charge is not getting to the spark plugs, so 
the car stumbles.

This was a problem with my VR6 GTI.  Cold, damp mornings were the 
worst.  All of the spray would condense on the cold engine and it ran 
terribly. When it was warm though, it didn't happen.  Since cold, damp 
mornings are kind of a way of life in New Hampshire it was a problem.

Try the WD-40 trick. It might fix it.  If it does, try getting some 
better spark plug wires. Sometimes the OE stuff doesn't have enough 
insulation.  That's what I did. It mostly fixed it.

bob
--
bob davis
bobd at members.evolt.org




More information about the thechat mailing list