surferlove007

Hey guys.
As many of you know, I'm a student at Texas Tech up in Lubbock, TX. Well a few days ago we had some terrible rain along with flooding on campus during one evening. That evening I happened to be in my political science class...and then of course when we all left there was water everywhere. I attempted to get through it without destroying my engine. Dunno if I've succeeded. I passed through some extremely deep water, maybe over a foot or a foot and a half.This was the only way off campus, not because I liked the idea of flooding my engine. I saw several other smaller cars like mine stranded, which I'm feeling pretty sorry for them now. Back to me.

So after this happened, while sitting at stop lights my engine would idle but kind of wine a little, or shake somewhat. Just little tremors. I figured I'd just gotten something a little wet, and it would dry out. I guess I was wrong, but then the check engine light came on sometime after this has been going on.

I took Stella (my car) to auto zone to have them check what the computer said about the car. It said I did in fact have a misfire on Cylinder #2. Also it mentioned something about my ignition signal malfunctioning. I put gas into my car a few days ago, about 3/4 of a tank. Well I've driven about 45 miles and it's already down past 1/2 of a tank. My car typically gets 350 to 400 miles on a tank. That is pretty damn terrible mileage. Several solutions I've heard from people are that the spark plugs need to be changed out, that because my mileage sucks that more gas is needed to go. The car has been feeling a bit sluggish.

I'm pretty concerned about it. I opted out of driving it to work today and took my bike, 5 mile ride to, 5 miles back. I don't want to make things worse.
So what all is associated with this kind of problem other than bad spark plugs? I wish I knew more about this area but I don't. Also, how much does this sort of thing cost if you take it somewhere, a ballpark if anyone knows. And if i do end up taking it in, I want to sound informed about my problem otherwise they will rob me blind because I'm a girl.

I'm picking up James tonight from the airport, and he's going to look at it and see what he can do. Otherwise it's going to have to go to an auto shop and hopefully get sorted out there. I'm pretty stressed out about this. Wish I was more auto-mechanical. So if anyone has ideas or information of this kinda problem please feel free to state it. Even observations, questions, whatever you need to know or what to know.

Model: 99 Volkswagen Beetle
2 Liter, 15 Gallon Tank. Recently had the oil changed. No previous misfire problems or other serious problems.

Thanks for reading the long post!

Psycho Dad

Likely something is still wet. It takes quite a bit of time for these things to dry out on their own. I'm not familiar with the new bugs and don't know if they have a distributer or if they are distributerless, but even distributerless engines don't like water on the igniters.

One old tried and true thing is to fire it up at night in the dark and look for a light show. the spark will want to take the path of least resistance to ground and if anything is still damp, there you go.

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telekinetic

If you're consistently misfiring on one cylinder, that means you only have 3 to power the whole car. Your gas mileage and power should both go down by about 25%.

Yeah, I agree. If there's anything like a distributor, you're describing perfectly the symptoms of water having gotten into it. Blow it out with some compressed air.

Otherwise, if it's only that one cylinder, maybe the coil pack for it (if they're individual) is bad, or the connection got wet and corroded.

ngdawg

Same problem was with the spouse's PT. Changing the spark plugs worked in his case.
In my case with an Escort (POS), it was the plug wires. Have they ever been changed? The flooding probably didn't help, specially if those are the original plug wires.

souzafone

My wife has a '00 Jetta, same motor.I tend to think the water just brought to the surface an already existing issue. I'm guessing relatively high miles and no/unknown history on plugs,wires,and coil. If thats the case replace all 3. Important---use VW wires and coil, don't cheap out. My wifes car had similar symptoms, turns out mpg's had been decreasing for awhile and power went down gradually, driving everyday she didn't notice, but driving it infrequently I noticed it was real slow. Within a week the CEL came on & it started misfiring noticeably.

Deltona Couple

The key here is when you said You most likely have gotten water into your primary or secondary ignition system. Without knowing the year of your VW, I can't direct you any closer. but you may need to diconnect the ignition connectors and dry them out. The fact that there is a code for the ignition signal leads me to look on the primary side(secondary ignition is from the coil, to the spark plug, primary is the side that CONTROLS the coil.) Here you should look to see if there is any standing water on the connectors. Let us know please what you find, and if you, and anyone else that posts a question PLEASE include as much information on the vehicle you need help on. Good luck!

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surferlove007

I did include inofrmation about my car. About as detailed as possible, if you were to read the bottom of the post.

Anyway...
James and I have bought the spark plug set, installed one...and now we're waiting on the engine to cool because we needed to go buy another extension for the socket.
Oh and of course now, there are more... misfires. Hopefully we can fix it while he's here.

JStrider

well we got all the plugs in. and it seems to have fixed the miss.

after doing the first one we realized we needed a longer extension to get the third one out, so we drove and got one, and then opened the hood to work more... only realize the painfully obvious fact that the engine had warmed up while we drove and we couldnt work on it at the moment. so 2 hours later we got them all swapped out and GG says all the power that was missing before seems to be back, and the vibration at idle is gone also

the old plugs didnt look too bad, but comparing to the pics in the chiltons guide they looked a bit overheated.

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surferlove007

Well...the problem didn't get fixed guys. Now I'm missing on cylinders 2 and 3. UGH. So now it's time to replace the ignition coils. Fabulous! Any suggestions?

QuasiMondo

Has to be the coils then. The coils are paired between cylinders 1 & 4 and 2 & 3.

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souzafone

Coil is much easier to replace than the plugs. Just remembered you've got a beetle, hope that doesn't matter to much. Remove AIR pump( 3 nuts,1 electrical connector, 2 hoses) and the coil pack is right there. Plugs are a PITA, disconnecting injectors,etc. Should also replace wires too.

surferlove007

Yea, well my dad ordered me a coil pack, THANK GOD! those suckers are expensive. And today I'm planning to go buy a set of spark plugs from VW, since amazingly they have the cheapest ones in Lubbock. Will keep you guys updated.

Datalife2

i had 2 cylinders missfire. I just put new plugs in and used injector cleaner. It fixed it fine. If not then its the coil.

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surferlove007

Yea, I had VW replace the spark plug wires because I don't feel confident enough to them on my own, like $75 in labor...oh well.
Anyways, now my car won't start. It turns..and it turns. But it never catched. Which makes me suspect its the ignition coil now. Since if theres no spark it won't catch ever. So I had to leave the car at school and get a ride home from a stranger. I'll call AAA tomorrow and tow it to the dealer and blame them...or make them check their work. My dad has a coil on it's way. So what I'll do is bring them that, and have them replace it as well. Hopefully then I can finally get a break!

Borla

My wife has a Jetta with the same engine. We've had to replace one of the coil packs, and have done spark plugs as routine maintenance a couple of times (had the car since 2001).

You have changed plugs and wires so far, and the car doesn't start, does it still have the "check engine" light on?

Hope it's nothing terribly expensive.

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