I recently cleaned my engine with degreaser and water from the hose. The car now sputters when accelerating. What could be wrong, and how do I fix it?
by 
tj hillyer
ANSWERS: 7
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Maybe you have moisture in the distributor cap.
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You should never, never, ever hose down your engine compartment with water.
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it could be couple things like the distributor cap is wet or spark plugs are flooded. i would suggest checking your spark plugs and make sure there are no water in them. with the distributor cap, it will be a waiting game. it probably just needs to dry out and there is no telling how long that could take. Usually around 2-3 days if you let it air dry. If it doesn't get any better after that, the cap might have to be replaced.
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If your vehicle has a distributor cap, it is probably just moisture inside the cap. All you have to do is remove the cap and dry it out, or as already suggested let it dry itself out. A neat trick is to spray the inside of a cap with WD-40 (just enough to coat the inside!!) and you should never have a problem again. As far as never hosing down an engine, I work at a dealership, and every used car that comes through the place gets hosed down, obviously you wouldnt want to direct the water at things like the alternator or ecm's, but i see no problem with it at all. The only time a vehicle has issues after the recon dept. cleans them is if there was an existing problem like arching ignition wires..
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Suck any standing water out of the sparkplug area, then dry it with no lint towels. Change your spark plugs and wires (about $35 total depending on your vehicle typr) which you should do anyhow if you're close to needing a tune-up. You can also put a small amount of an engine drying / lubricating agent in the cylinders before the new plugs go in...if there was any water around the base of the plugs, it dropped into your cylinders when you removed them. Check the distributor cap. If it has any condensation or moisture in it, air dry it or replace it (also not that expensive). If you dry it with a solvent, it will break down any plastic or non-metal parts, so don't do that. You might recheck it in a couple of days, as any residual condensation should show up by then. Finally, stick a dose of fuel injector cleaner in your next full tank of gas.
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NEVER USE WATER ON A CARS ENGINE............. Water will short your ingnition system.
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the relays could be shorted when they get wet they sometimes corrode,if you wash the engine compartment let the car run while your doing it,it dries faster an watch washing sencers,the're not cheep'
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