My engine is clunking.. Water in it?
 

I'm having a problem. Tonight my engine started clunking when I go above 4000 rpm.. It also seems to be rougher at idle. Any ideas on what the problem is?

I have one guess, though. Could it be water in the engine? We had torrential rains here today and I hit a 5-6 inch deep flood on Rt 1 at about 45 mph. I didn't see the flood until I hit it.. The problem started after that. What are some symptoms of water in the engine?

if it's water, your motor is pretty much done. hydrolock is not a good thing.

Once water enters the engine, the engine is done. You need a new car, young man.

Is there any way to tell if there's water in it? Tonight when I was driving home, some water dripped on my foot and I don't think that's a good sign, considering where it would have had to have dropped from.. Should I take it to the dealer?

If there was water in it, would the engine seize immediately, or is it more of a slow process? There's definitely something wrong with the engine.. :tsk:

Well, that is one way to speed up the process of getting the new 3-series. :)

best case scenario - bent valve.
Worst case - throw a rod through the block.

CJ,

Before you take a match and burn your perfectly good BMW, RELAX...

When I lived in Miami we would have terrential (sp?) rain pours all the time. As I lived on an island, sometimes there would be a water accumulation and the only way home was through it. At the time, I had an Audi A4.

So, a number of times, I built up some ramming speed and drove my way through the puddle. It's not good to do this, I don't suggest it, but sometimes you gotta go and don't have much other choice.

I would have the car stall after ward on occassion and even a car died after doing this but came back to life the next day.. Let your car dry out and see what happens. I'd bet at least 50% chance, it will be fine. You probably got water in the exhaust. But again, all the times I did this, it never did any significant damage and believe you me, those puddles were huge.. Water would come on the windshield and I wouldn't be able to see. I do remember clunking noise and the car acting a little weird for a couple days though.

-- However, my bro also did this once in 1991. It was my dads BMW 735il and in Jamaca Queens, he was on his way home from the south shore to the north shore. He drove through a puddle that everyone else drove through and the car seized, in the middle of the puddle. It was pouring out and the electronics got hit. The sunroof and windows opened and the seats started moving about on their own. The entire electronics of the car were destroyed and water flooded in the car. It was about $20K worth of damage in 1992 dollars.

But if you got your car home, don't be surprised if it has problems turning over. Play with it.. You might not have done any significant damage.

B

Hmm...

Reading this makes me wonder about how my X3 is doing.

San Francisco once had really strong rains, and at the end of Sunset Blvd. there is a problem with the drainage and it always creates a rather large puddle. However on this evening, it was more than a puddle, maybe 5-10" of water deep and around 10 feet wide.

Initially I didn't see it, and went through it at 35 mph (speed limit) which slowed the car down to 10 mph and sent water flying upwards at least 5 feet on both sides of the car.

Being a teenager, and saying cool, I did it several at least 3 more times at increased speed. (Thus increasing the cool factor...)

X3 handled it like a champ, but it never occurred to me that this could have caused damage... Perhaps next time I'll use more caution.

Remove the spark plugs to let the cylinders dry out, in case you do have a little water in there, and hope for the post.

If you do that, make sure you cover the engine with a tarp or something similar so that nothing gets down into the plug holes.... I wouldn't do this unless as a last resort.

...yea, that goes without saying LOL; and why wouldn't you do this?

It is more likely that you have water on the engine. One or more of the spark plug coils may shorted. On a hot sunny day, open the hood and let the electronics dry out. If possible remove the plastics engine cover to expose the spark plug coils and hopefully your problem will go away. Good luck!

I had to drive to Nashua this morning, 90 miles roundtrip. The car seems a little better, but it still feels strange somehow. At higher RPM, it still clunks.. The first thought I had when I felt this was that my coils had arched.. They did that in the X5 when I was driving, and the feeling was the same. Cruising at about 75, the car will sometimes start making this droning noise. It goes away after a while. If I rest my hand on the shifter at idle, it seems to be shaking more than normal. Even the handling seems a little off, but I could be imagining that. One of the reasons I thought I had water in the engine was that when I was driving home last night, some water dripped onto my foot from somewhere under the dashboard.. I was wearing flip flops, so I felt it. The car starts fine, but it sounds a little strange at first. All the electronics seem to be working fine.

Driving it really is a bad idea until you can get it checked out and letting things dry. Here are the bad things usually associated with water and clunk: cracked head, spun bearings, bent rod, etc. You should at the very least drain the oil and make sure it looks ok.

Change your oil right away !!! For the price of an oil change vrs a new engine, it is a small price to pay for something that might fix your car.

all the other suggestions sound good as well. But, you do not need to remove the park plugs to dry them out, however I would take out the plugs and examine them. I think there is a chart on what a good plug should look like, if not google it.

This is going to sound funny, but I had a GTX that hit a huge puddle, more like a small lake. It was soaked from head to toe. when I chugged all the way home, I changed the oil twice. Changed it once with a crankcase cleaner, then changed the oil again. Enginve was fixed. As far as the water dripping on your foot, I had the same thing in the GTX, (now this will sound funny) but I took the dehumidifier from my basement put it on a board on the front seat and craked the window a few inches. I let it run overnight in the car and in the morning it had almost a full bucket of water in it. The car smelled fine and was perfect to dirve then next day. Never had a problem again.


Good luck, let us know how u make out.

I wouldn't bother to change the oil, but I would pull the dipstick and see if the oil was a normal colour. If it is a beige/white colour, you have water in the sump. If not, forget about it.

I don't see the connection between water in the footwell, and water in the engine. Possible, but a real stretch. It is far more likely that if there was a heavy rainfall, or you drove through deep water, that the ignition system is wet. You even noticed the similarity to the coils arcing.

Yes, there could be a bent valve, but that doesn't fix itself, and you note that you can drive at over 4000 rpm. Again, it is possible but unlikely.

Go back to the advice of Tomaz, and make sure it is dry under the hood. Then go to the dealer and get the codes checked. Drama over.

If you have water in the combustion chamber there is only one way it would get there (short of a blown head gasket) and thats via the intake. The odds of enough water getting that far and past the air filter is next to impossible in any normal rain or heavy storm. If by some chance water did get past the air filter, past the MAF without damaging it and then to the composition chamber it would be turned to steam immediately. And you would probably not even notice. If enough water got in the intake to do any more than turn to steam your engine would lock up.
Without a OBD code triggered, you do not have a major problem, and probably not water related.