[jonathan joseph]

Hello all!
This is my first time posting here, I'm looking forward to contributing.

Heres my problem. I drove my 06' Beetle TDI into some pretty deep flood waters. Stalled out. (Please understand that I know how stupid this was.) I had a friend tow me out backwards. I pulled the air cleaner apart immediately and found the filter soaked, and a little water had made it's way past the filter into the MAF housing and such. Not so much that I was afraid of the engine having ingested a dangerous amount (of course I don't know what dangerous would be, but it was just a little damp, not flooded.)
I cleaned and dried everything and replaced the filter with new. I did not change the oil but it seemed free of any water at least on the dipstick and inside the filler cap. The engine was at no time submerged, the water was only up to maybe the middle of the front bumper on the drivers side only( I drove into a ditch that was not visible because of the flood waters. The car only tilted into it deeply on the one side.)
Upon restarting the car, which it did pretty quickly after cranking, although very rough running at first, a lot of water was blown out of the exhaust. I assume that the tailpipe had been submerged but did not notice this at the time.
I'm trying to provide as much info as possible to help a diagnosis but to make a long story shorter, the car runs pretty well now except for rough cold starting and some smoking. After warming up I think it is back to normal, possibly seems a little louder, but I may just be listening to hard.
The roughness and smoke is very disconcerting though.
So what do the experts think? Would this little bit of filtered water in the intake damage the MAF sensor? Or could the water in the exhaust have damaged the O2 sensor? Or something worse?
The car has 28K miles.
I was a mechanic 15 years ago but have been out of it so long newer cars are a little out of my league.

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Jonathan

 

[jonathan joseph]

a little follow up

I pulled MAF sensor connector. No change to running that I could notice at idle. Engine was kind of warm. I will try again when stone cold, where I have the rough running.

Grizzly: I'm pretty sure the tail pipe was under water for a few minutes. I think the exhaust filled up from the back. I think if I had passed water through the cylinders it would be a lot worse than it is, at least I'm hoping...
Runs good when hot, smooth, and mileage/power seems to be the same.

I really think it would be hard for much water to get through that filter. It's a tight fit. I have rebuilt engines that ingested water, it's not a pretty sight, but then they didn't run to well at all .

Thanks again.
Jonathan

 

[jonathan joseph]

Thanks

CCBB
Thanks for the reply. When I say it runs rough it's only maybe for a minute or three. Starts instantly, never stalls, just coughs a little for a minute. Smokes bad only on startup, then gets better. Needless to say it was perfect before with only 28K miles. I'm in South Carolina but it's been in the 30's and 40's in the mornings.

It's been a couple of weeks since this happened. We've been driving the car since. Probably two tanks of fuel. I've run some diesel treatment/injector cleaner just in case. Mileage and performance seem normal.

Would a bad MAFS cause any symptoms like this? I read that they are pretty sensitive. Also I forgot to mention that I dried the intake with a heat gun, but was extremely careful. I never let it get hotter than was comfortable for my hand to be in front of the gun. I really wanted to make sure it was dry, but was concerned about damaging the MAFS.

I know it sounds like I'm trying to avoid accepting the possibility of internal engine damage and I am! I guess a compression test is in order.

Do you think just a couple of minutes of warming up would be enough to bring the compression back up? It seems to take for ever for the little blue cold engine light to go off.

Also it shows no CEL. I'm not even sure what kind of warning lights the car has. It's very frustrating not even having a temp gauge.

Any other possibilities? What symptoms would a damaged turbo show?

Thanks again
Jonathan

 

[jonathan joseph]

Thanks

Well i guess I'm going to get a compression tester.

I'm still not 100% convinced it's in the engine. Do you think a damaged turbo could leak oil while resting and explain the burst of smoke on startup but then none there after?

Cold start up this morning. With MAF disconnected. No real difference.

It starts right up, blows a bit of smoke and hiccups a bit and then is clean and running decent in a very short period of time. I mean like 20 seconds. If the car was ten years old I probably wouldn't think twice about it, but it was perfect before the "incident"

Would water in the fuel or malfunctioning injectors cause any symptoms like these? I need to get some one else to start the car so I can actually smell the smoke, it happens to quick to catch it, but I would say it smells more like un/badly burned fuel than oil smoke. Of course I guess low compression would explain this also.

Thanks again for any insight. I will be following your suggestions, doing a compression test and going from there.

What do you think would have happened if there was hydro-lock? I know what can happen, but I'm curious if there is any anecdotal evidence on this engine? I have seen hydro-locked engines with cracked rings and bent connecting rods. I think if I had cracked rings it would be a lot worse. I guess a slightly bent rod would decrease compression and explain it all. Uhgghhh now this sounds to likely....

Jonathan

PS I will say again though that upon removing the MAF housing to dry it out the moisture inside was on the order of condensation on the walls of the plastic pipe, and almost none in the aluminum intake section. No where near standing water.

 

[jonathan joseph]

New question?

What is the adapter size needed for a compression tester for my engine?

24 mm X 2? If so I can get this easy. I will be searching the site here but it would help if someone knows this quickly.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Edit: So it looks like it's 24 mm X 2 for injector and 10 mm X 1 for glow plug? Does this sound correct? Which is going to be easier? I'm guessing glow plug but the problem is the adapter is harder to find. The 24mm comes in a lot of sets.

 

[jonathan joseph]

Grizzly
Thanks for that, I guess I'll keep looking for the 10 mm

Yeah the puff of smoke would be ok if it hadn't started after the flood. There was nothing noticeable before. And then the roughness. It's weird though, like I said, just a little not even a minute now. I don't see that being low compression and changing in 20 secs. Maybe oil or fuel leaking down into the cylinder that gets burned off in that time?

I'm working on finding a tester locally that isn't Snap-On. As much as I'd like to have it they're a little pricey!

Jonathan

 

[jonathan joseph]

CCBB

Sorry if I mislead you with the minute or three description, I guess I was thinking thats how long it took immediately after the swamping but it seemed to get progressively better as things dried out. I wouldn't say the idle was perfect after warming up, but good enough that your average observer (my wife thinks its fine) wouldn't notice anything. I think I detect a little "missing" for lack of a better word but there is no noticeable change in idle engine speed as shown by the tach.

My other car is a diesel MB G-Wagen whose intake system (filter box gasketing and filter etc.) is designed to not allow water to pass. It's not uncommon to stall one of them by sucking water and mud into the filter, but no harm done. I was thinking that this was what happened, once the filter got saturated it couldn't pass any air and then stalled, not that water had reached the turbo or cylinders. Obviously a little got through since I saw it in the intake but it seemed like a very small amount, vapor even, not enough to pool anywhere. Unless what was there had already gotten sucked in to the engine.


Jonathan

Again I really appreciate the patience and help. I will keep you informed.