Nissan Pathfinder 1994 water problem

Question

Ok im not very intelligent with the whole car subject but i have been having a problem for a while with the car. Every time I get a car wash or go through a puddle my car starts to shudder and does not run smooth for the following few days. I know that you are not suppose to get water in the engine but it should be able to withstand the public car wash. Im guessing it has something to do with the spark plugs but is there anyone that knows why its doing this and if there is any way to remedy this situation.

Answer 1

On that year model you can seal the engine wall to hood gasket with silicone sealant in the middle . The problem is known in the 4x4 crowd. Silicone caulking gasket sealer to dam back water from running onto the rear spark plugs. And It would not hurt to have some new plug wires and distributor cap and rotor checked and replaced. Other words a complete tune up. Remember timing belt every 5 years or 60 thousand miles.  

Answer 2

What I'd do is run it through the car wash or use a lawn hose on the car , later open the hood and look for wet spots.Common problem is the spark plug wires or the ignition coil gets wet and this causes the engine to run funny etc.But a bad set of sparkplug wires or sparkplugs wires that are leaking can cause this too or a plug that connects to a sensor etc is getting wet.

The problem is that water could be getting into the engine area via under the vehicle too and you must look underneath the vehicle to see if any wiring or connections are getting wet.

Just say you just washed it and once out of car wash u opened hood saw the spark plug wires were wet.There is a special anti-moister etc jell that is applied to the sparkplug wire rubber ends to spot moister from getting into the system.

One simple test you could do is pop off one by one each spark plug wire going to the ignition coil.If you notice that any of the connectors on the coil are rusty or corroded that would tell you that in fact water or moister is getting into that the connection.

I'd try that first off see if the connections are rusty etc but be sure you only check one by one and pop them back on right.

Hope that helps and best of luck.By the way remember look for the wet spots or areas and especially for wet wires or wet plug in connectors.If you find some plug in connector is wet , and the car is acting up , try disconnecting the plug and cleaning and drying the contacts and then restarting vehicle and seeing if engine is back to normal.Basically by doing  this adventually you'll end up finding what it is that is getting wet and causing this problem.Just remember that some wires and harness's etc are underneath the car and if using a lawn hose be sure you wet underneath the car too.

  

Answer 3

Some cars just have his problem,,,and i dont know why. But you can spray the plug wires with WD40 and it will displace the moisture off the wires and probably help to solve the problem.

it doesn't hurt anything,,,been doing it for years.