A Strange Occurance?

[sensualt101 31 1 Cars]

i had a strange occurance driving my 1992 205 gti 1.6 home from work in driving rain recently and drove through a lot of deep puddles and flood water late at night with no issue and was about 6 miles from home when at 45 mph i hit a 3 foot deep 30 ft long pond in the road ( quite a common sight in lancashire on country roads as i am sure many will know! ) and my car unsurprisingly slowed very rapidly and stopped in the centre of the afore mentioned pond!

 

i tried re starting the engine and heard a large bang so gave that up and was forced to step out of the car in to the icy cold water about up to the cars sills so just under door level luckily and pushed her out on to level damp road to walk round and assess the situation and was none too happy and soaked to the skin by this time!

 

knowing that everything electrical under the bonnet would have had a strong chance of being at least damp if not soaking wet i phoned and got the car towed home asap as i didnt want to blow any fuses or cause any further damage!

 

so car home at my house i went to bed and arranged a lift to work the following day as i was off to austria for 10 days ( i drive tour coaches )

 

when i returned from austria and the car had been standing still drying out for 10 days i went out to see if the car would start after checking all the electrics were attached firmly and dry and it turned over normally and was fuelling and had sparks but just refused to start despite really trying and shooting flames out of the exhaust in spectacular style!

 

i set about checking everything was dry and connected and that no fuses or relays had blown with no success!

 

i was beginning to think i was in for an expensive rebuild but i phoned a friend of the family who was a marine engineer and mobile car technician to ask if he could think of anything that i hadnt checked or tried and he said he would pop round.

 

he confirmed everything i had already done and i again tried to start the engine in front of him and he calmly said i have one more idea as it clearly wants to start and he could see no evidence of damage internally and a compression test seemed to confirm that.

 

he unscrewed and removed the elbow from the standard airbox to the airflow meter and said give it a try now!

 

i did so expecting nothing and the car instantly fired in to life as if nothing was wrong in the 1st place!

 

i then removed the side of the standard airbox and removed what was left inside!

 

it looked like a cheap after market filter had been installed at the last service which was mostly paper element with a feeble metal gauze tube in the centre which had spectacularly collapsed and blocked all airflow in to the engine! it was easily the worst example i have ever seen and i can only guess that when i hit the 3 foot wall of water that some of it had been sucked directly in to the air intake and soaked the filter element so badly that the then running engine had sucked it in to the collapsed mess i had extracted?

 

a new mahle oem style filter with a rigid drilled metal core and outer sleeve has been installed and the old girl hasnt missed a beat since!

 

who says old pugs are unreliable eh? lol!

 

anyone else ever had any similar incidents?

Edited March 5, 2013 by sensualt101

[welshpug 1,677]

very lucky it was only that and not a bend rod!

[omega 82]

i think you should be praising the air filter!

from what you say the engine sucked in water and the airfilter sucked it all up and saved the engine!

next time go through water a lot slower you might not be lucky again.

[sensualt101 31 1 Cars]

very lucky it was only that and not a bend rod!

 

i agree as it must have been an extremely abrupt stop to the engine rotation!

[sensualt101 31 1 Cars]

i think you should be praising the air filter!

from what you say the engine sucked in water and the airfilter sucked it all up and saved the engine!

next time go through water a lot slower you might not be lucky again.

 

again i agree in some respect the crappy filter did in hindsight help i suppose and i have decided in similar conditions to take a much longer route home ( both in distance and time! ) that sticks to a motorway and well drained a roads instead of potentially flooded b roads and country lanes!

 

its either that or drive a bloody 4x4 and i wont be choosing to do that any time soon!