Car starting problems after rain?

Question

Hi, I have a 95M, 1.2 Vauxhall Corsa. It suffers from an odd problem. After its rained, or if theres been a lot of fog / frost during the night, the car hesitates to start. The crank turns fine, and it does start eventually. Its difficult for dealers to diagnose, since after driving to a dealer, and hence warming the engine, the problem temporarily disapears. The engine does not output any error codes. Any ideas? Thanks.

Answer 1

Moisture is getting into the distributor. It has possibly developed a crack somewhere and leaks.

Answer 2

The first thing to suspect is the plug wires. If you have someone who can turn the ignition switch while you look under the hood- do it. I will bet that you will either see sparks, or at least hear arcing.
The cap and/or rotor is also a likely source of problems, as well as the coil.
But often over looked is the ballast resistor, it may have cob-webs or other junk collecting dirt and moisture causing the ignition system to fail.
One other thing that comes to mind is there may be excessive moisture in your tank. This happens most often to those who drive very little and do not keep the tank full.
Good luck.

Answer 3

Undoubtedly this is moisture/wet distributor cap,leads etc How long has this been happening as i am sure the leads cap etc have been sprayed with the likes of wd40. This does and can work but its not an ever ending fix,especially if you havn,t had the car years and arn,t sure how long this has been happening.I suggest you change the cap rotor arm and plug leads,paying attention to the coil post for cracks. When these are fitted,seal with the likes of wd40 Check all multi plug connectors and seal as req G

Answer 4

It's not an identical problem, but I had a car once that died when I would drive through puddles. After a few minutes it would start back up and go just fine.
It turned out to be a crack in the distributor cap. The water would get in the crack and kill the engine.
I never took my car to a mechanic because I'm married to one. He figured it out and it didn't do it again.
Your story sounds really familiar mainly because after the car heats up, it's fine. I bet the heat is drying the rain, thus fixing the problem.

Answer 5

Probably the same problem as the very first mini's damp in the distributor. Get someone to wrap a small peice of polythene round it and secure first spraying it with damp start.

It will stop the damp and condenstation. Sounds silly well give it a try and see how you get on.

Answer 6

Take the car to the dealers the day before hand - leave it over night and get them to start it in the morning. You might have to wait till the right weather though.

We do cold starts all the time and its often the only way of replicating a problem. I am surprised they haven't suggested this to you.

Answer 7

I had this same problem with my car I even carried a can of moisture remover to spray on the plug wires and distributor cap. I ended up changing the plug wires and the dist. cap and the problem was solved

Answer 8

Take off the wire from the distributor to the coil with the boots and turn the thing around so that the end that was in the coil with its boot is now in the distributor and vice versa.

Answer 9

moisture in distrubitor and or plug wires. check for cracks in cap or if its not seated properly. its very cheap and easy to fix. maybe $25. also a quick fix, open up the cap and spray some wd40 in there, that will displace the moisture and most likely start. but dont do it very often.

Answer 10

It seems clear that there is moisture in your electrical system, all the way from distributor thro' every inch of cable to spark plugs. You need to find out how it gets there, and stop it!