Questions and Answers
Aspire Runs Bad In The Rain
Q. Hi, I've searched the entire net and I can't find what to do about my car that won't run right in the rainy weather. Something must be getting wet, because the car (1994 Ford Aspire, manual, 4.6L ???, ) chugs, sputters, stalls, jumps, and doesn't accelerate, whenever it rains.
We have no idea what to look for or look at. We've tried dry gas, getting new gas, and looking for bad wires. The only way we can drive it is by keeping the RPM's really high constantly, and driving in a lower gear than we should be in! If you can give us a starting point, that'd be great!!
Thanks,
JenniferA. What you describe Jennifer is a classic secondary ignition problem. This involves the distributor cap, rotor and ignition wires.
What happens in rainy weather condensation builds up in side the cap and causes the spark to jump randomly inside. This causes misfires and stalling. Also the higher humidity when it's raining will cause the spark to jump to ground from any small cracks in the ignition wires.
This is easy enough to check for. Fill a spray bottle with water that has about a tablespoon of salt. Then start the engine and spray the cap and wires. I think you'll see the engine begin to sputter and shack and spark will be jumping out of the wires.
Replacing the cap, rotor and wires will fix this problem.
FYI, it's a 1.3 not a 4.6.
Additional Information provided courtesy of ALLDATA
