1.6 + Large Puddle = Flashing Emns Light?

[Pablo]

Drove through a regular puddle accelerating off of a roundabout onto a dual carriageway. Lost a bit of traction cause the puddle was a little deeper than I thought, but nothing drastic. Speed was no more than 35mph. The wheels over span a little in the puddle and immediately I lost power with the emission light coming on, flashing intermittently from this point onwards.

Abandoned journey and came straight home, was a 90 second drive back to the house which was lucky.
The exhaust note is now interrupted and pulsing rather than a constant idle.
It's that kind of sound where it's as though the car is running on only 3 cylinders or a similar lack of power and efficiency in the engine noise?

Service wise, everything has been pukka previous. Never had any dash lights ever. I've owned it from 16k and taken it up to 79k miles now. Has been regularly serviced throughout. Last oil/c was about 4k ago - So it's not due to neglect or that problems were imminent.

Could it be something important has got wet in the puddle, inlet valve or a sensor somewhere?
It's a 2003 Dynamique 1.6 with the K4M engine.

Thoughts please ?

Thanks guys,

Pete.

 

[fossie]

Best hope that the engine hasnt sucked any water and bent a conrod........

 

[Chrisjk]

Check the coils mate, pieces of crap. I had that last time one of mine went, as i was accelerating it just died.

 

[rich-6]

Best hope that the engine hasnt sucked any water and bent a conrod........

If it did it wouldn't be running, Chances are a connector has got wet on the engine, I'd check all the leads, spray the coils and plugs with some WD40 to disperse any water too

 

[Sean6545]

Id check 02 sensors 1st. There the most likely to have been damaged.

 

[clvs2222]

check coil pack and plugs. it couldav taken a really small amount of water into the inlet which hasnt stopped it running but is enough to play up, it would have a be a very small amount though. as said, if it was a fair bit, it wouldav bent the conrod.

 

[fossie]

Just a suggestion as my old GTi-6 did the same thing, only a small amount of water but made it run like he has said

 

[PS autoshine]

i had that light come on after ragin it round in the snow.turned itself off.should be alright when it dries out.i think

 

[Pablo]

£87 quid and an ignition coil later, Renaults service dept. at Richard Saunders had me working smoothly again.
I fail to see how water got that far up! But I can only take their word for it without dismantling to check... And wouldn't think once driven on a 'new' coil would be identifiable again?

Apparently that's their servicing hourly rate btw? :S Scandalous. Knew it would be high, but not that bad.
But yeah all fine again - thanks for help fellas.

 

[flick3k]

to be honest mate it probs wasn't the water that caused it, the 1.6's are rediculous for munching through coil packs - i'd put my money on it just being the coil went (as they generally don't give any warning) and it just so happened that coincidentally you went through a big puddle simultaneously!

 

[st3ve]

One of my coils went just like that, it didn't even let me know I just happened to feel the car being a little hesitant and then the dash light started to go on and then off intermittently, listening to the exhaust it sounded just like you mentioned but it also gave off a bad egg smell.

Main difference is I paid £50 for a new coil though, good ol AA for you.

 

[Gumby]

It won't actually have been the coil breaking. It'll be that water has got between the coil pack and spark plug, which unfortunately I have experienced a fair few times too (K4J is the same engine layout)! Easy solution is to get the engine warm, undo the torx on the coil packs and take them out, then wipe the water off and let the rest evaporate for a couple of minutes (or blast with compressed air), put the coil packs back in et voila.