Have I broken my engine!?

teapot16

Hi,

I drove through some flood water in an Opel Astra and am having some trouble with it since. It started as normal, but when I took it for a spin it was behaving wiredly. Its hard to explain, but basically, when I was driving along, even if accelerating the car was trying to slow down. When I went down a gear, the revs picked up again. This problem seemed worse when I had to slow down to first or second gear.

I've booked it in for a service on Monday morning, but I'm trying to prepare myself. Does anyone have any idea what this could be and would it be huge money to sort out?

Thanks!

Hal1

There might be some dampness effecting electrical components, altenator, starter, battery, plugs etc. If the water was deep enough she would have sucked in some water, but I don't think it would start at all then.

ART6

teapot16 wrote: »

Hi,

I drove through some flood water in an Opel Astra and am having some trouble with it since. It started as normal, but when I took it for a spin it was behaving wiredly. Its hard to explain, but basically, when I was driving along, even if accelerating the car was trying to slow down. When I went down a gear, the revs picked up again. This problem seemed worse when I had to slow down to first or second gear.

I've booked it in for a service on Monday morning, but I'm trying to prepare myself. Does anyone have any idea what this could be and would it be huge money to sort out?

Thanks!

Could be all manner of things, but a faulty Lambda can show those symptoms. Might just be damp in the terminals and a bit of WD40 would cure it. If the lambda has to be replaced I'd guess you'd be looking at a bill for over €100

kazul

Brakes binding?

rotinaj

Yours by any chance?

teapot16

The brakes felt like they were working as normal...

corktina

I'd go fro a good dose of WD40 as stated and park it in a garage with the lid up if you can.... possibly a superser nearby might help too.... doesnt sound too serious...

kazul

teapot16 wrote: »

Hi,

Its hard to explain, but basically, when I was driving along, even if accelerating the car was trying to slow down. When I went down a gear, the revs picked up again. This problem seemed worse when I had to slow down to first or second gear.

So the revs were dropping even though you were depressing the accelerator?
Might just need an "Italian Tune-Up" i.e. find a quiet road or industrial estate and drive the nuts off it for a while

Just curious, but why did you have to change down to 1st?

teapot16

The reason I was so far down the gears was because I was on some back roads, with really bad bends!!

It was more that it felt like there was resistance, it would almost chug for a few seconds - then it would be ok and pick up again as normal.

I'm not terribly mechanically minded, so sorry if the descripton isn't great.

AzureAuto

Is there any different noise coming from the engine, maybe a loud knocking at all? I had an escort once, drew water into the engine after driving through a puddle that was more like loch ness it was so deep, bent the con rods and had subsequent loud noise and similar performance issues. This is a real worst case sort of scenario though...

teapot16

There was one smallish clunk after a few mins, but that was it, there were no other noises that I noticed.

I'm starting to feel more positive, hopefully its not misplaced!