Strange Running After Body Repair

Had my car at the body shop for a week to fix a minor but ugly rear door smash. Car looks great now. But when I picked it up it ran like shit. It stalled after I started it. Then sputtered hard till it got through the initial warmup cycle. It ran rough all the way home for about 6 miles. Sputtering, lurching and dumping boost when it got past 10 psi. No dash lights and I didn't have OBD11 with me.

I parked it with the intent of looking at it the next morning. Next morning it ran perfectly. No codes. Like the day before never existed. It's been 4 days and it still runs perfectly.

Any ideas? Maybe they got something wet? Maybe gas phase separated sitting for a few days? I am running e15.

It reminded me of my sisters old 94 Sentra. If it sat for more than 3 days it would be flooded, not start or run like crap for 20 miles. It had 2 leaky injectors that would just spew till the car flooded.

Is it possible that I could have an injector leak?

Passenger side?

Yes. Passenger rear door.

Did they fill it up? Sounds like evap canister got fuel in it. Just needed time to dry out.

Diggs24 said:

Did they fill it up? Sounds like evap canister got fuel in it. Just needed time to dry out.

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I don't think they filled it up. I know the owner acted very strange. He was very rushed and wouldn't look at me. I have a feeling he moved it out of the garage and noticed it was running poorly.

It runs fine now. I'll just chalk it up to, "whatever" and move on.

cars, man.....

Diggs,


I was waiting to see where you were going with that.



Props


Mud

something similar happened to an integra I used to own. I picked it up after some body work and it ran like crap, and I almost didn't make it home.


turned out that they power-washed the engine bay. during the sanding phase of body work, lots of find dust gets everywhere. They probably had good intentions when they power-washed my engine bay, but they didn't count on getting water under the spark plug cover and down into the spark plug holes. When I got home, I checked th plugs, and there was a little bit of water in each plug hole. I took out the plugs, let the car dry for a couple of hours, and it was fine after that.


They could have done something similar on your car, and got some water somewhere it's not supposed to be.

mike-y said:

something similar happened to an integra I used to own. I picked it up after some body work and it ran like crap, and I almost didn't make it home.


turned out that they power-washed the engine bay. during the sanding phase of body work, lots of find dust gets everywhere. They probably had good intentions when they power-washed my engine bay, but they didn't count on getting water under the spark plug cover and down into the spark plug holes. When I got home, I checked th plugs, and there was a little bit of water in each plug hole. I took out the plugs, let the car dry for a couple of hours, and it was fine after that.


They could have done something similar on your car, and got some water somewhere it's not supposed to be.

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Yeah. That's very possible.