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Losing power when driving with standing water?

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128
My EP3 suffers badly with standing water on the road.

It used to be that if I drove through a big puddle (very vary slowly) the car would stutter for about 20 seconds after. Then all was good.

Today while driving there was a thunder storm and loads of sudden rain. There wasn't any big puddles this time but lots of water on the road and gradually while driving very slowly (because of the car in front) the car was loosing power to the point I had my foot to the floor and it was still slowing down. Then full power, then no power, then full power, ...........

Any advice on where I should start trying to solve the problem. I don't think the water would be splashing high enough up the engine to cover the plugs, however it is a possibility. I have standard air intake so nice and high in the engine.

So any advice? (Please don't say, don't drive in the wet)
 
Possibly a problem with the sensors for air temp/pressure/flow etc. could be a leak in your air-box, could also be something on the exhaust side, bit of a long shot but covering the tail pipe or something or getting in if theres a crack in a low hanging part, electrical shorts is also a possibility.

I'd start with breathing problems first and looking for leaks in the engine bay.
 
I have had a quick check of everything I can and I can't see any cracks in the air intake or exhaust.

It happened again last night, but this time the engine light came on, unfortunately I don't have a fault reader yet, going to do some research now.
 
You can pull the codes without a reader

Thanks, I did look at doing this but I have decided against it and ordered a reader instead. Knowing me I would just short the car somehow, or snap the paperclip in the connector or something.
 
OK so got myself a code reader and it gives one code of P0132 (O2 sensor bank 1 sensor 1 high voltage).

Where is this sensor? could it be that the sensor wiring is getting wet and shorting or something. Or does mean my car is sucking in water which is affecting sensor?
 
It's on the cat, probably on its way out.

Cheers, that would defiantly put it in the splash zone. I will try and get a look at it at the weekend, see if I can see anything obvious. If the sensor was playing up would this cause the engine to effectively cut out? (It didn't cut out but it wasn't far off) I understand it uses this sensor to gauge how much fuel to put in the engine but I would have thought that if the ECU saw the sensor was faulty (hence check engine light) it would go back to a default program and run OK but just not at its optimum?
 
Cheers, that would defiantly put it in the splash zone. I will try and get a look at it at the weekend, see if I can see anything obvious. If the sensor was playing up would this cause the engine to effectively cut out? (It didn't cut out but it wasn't far off) I understand it uses this sensor to gauge how much fuel to put in the engine but I would have thought that if the ECU saw the sensor was faulty (hence check engine light) it would go back to a default program and run OK but just not at its optimum?
If the O2 is on its way out the car will run like dog depending on what readings it's giving the ECU. The car won't revert to a 'map' it'll just give the ECU false readings, they'll be a threshold on the sensor that the ECU will detect through resistance and voltage which will trigger an EML. The car will usually just run really rich to protect itself but that's it.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk
 
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