1994 BMW 325 not good.

GROOSAM

MEMBER
1994 BMW 325
6 CYL
2WD
MANUAL
116,000 MILES

I was cleaning under the hood to get the grease and dirt build up off with a commercial product about 2 hours ago. After spraying the product and letting it sit for 15 minutes I rinsed all the parts off with water; I tried to stay away from any wiring. When it was all dried I took it out to the store. At the time there were no problems whatsoever.
About 45 minutes later when I started the car again I noticed that it rumbled and puttered when started and almost stalled while putting it into first. It felt like I have to give it a little more gas than usual. The gas pedal and stick shook and the car jerked when accelerating. While in neutral the tachometer has small bursts then under revs, repeating itself.

It's in the driveway now with the hood up. Im just gonna let the car sit for a while now.

Any input would be helpful. If you need any further specific details to answer the question feel free to ask.

6 Replies

DOCHAGERTY

MECHANIC
9,601 POSTS

Letting it sit overnight might let whatever water that may have gotten into something evaporate and if not then you might have to pull the engine cover off and look down into the spark plug wells and see if there is water pooled up in there. Maybe some compressed air could do the trick and puff it out.

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Thursday, June 19th, 2008 AT 8:43 PM

GROOSAM

MEMBER
15 POSTS

The car is rattling pretty badly and it smells like there's something burning. Could it be water in the distributor? Maybe the cleaner ate through something?

Any possible worst case scenarios?

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Thursday, June 19th, 2008 AT 9:11 PM

DOCHAGERTY

MECHANIC
9,601 POSTS

There is no distributor on your car, BMW uses individual coils over each spark plug. Unfortunately odors are not communicated well in cyberspace. I doubt the chemicals ate through something. Worst case could be the power train control modules have been adversely affected by the water and cleaning agent, let it sit, try it again in the A.M.

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Thursday, June 19th, 2008 AT 11:37 PM

GROOSAM

MEMBER
15 POSTS

I left the car out all night and all day in the garage with the engine cover taken off and in the sun. It started up fine but worsened after about a half a mile. Could that still be the problem? It's still puttering rumbling and getting horrible mileage. Could water be stuck anywhere else thats making it do this?

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Saturday, June 21st, 2008 AT 12:14 PM

DOCHAGERTY

MECHANIC
9,601 POSTS

I am not sure of what is going on with your car here, If there is a fault then you may need to seek out local professional assisstance to rectify the problem.