Bad Engine Hesitation - Help Required Please

tasdigi · Postby **tasdigi** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 7:52 pm

I have a 98 NB manual that suddenly has developed an annoying hesitation.

A little background of the vehicle..

It has only done 51,000km, and has been regularly serviced by Mazda. Totally stock, dríven sedately.

Was last filled with petrol in December last year. Has only been dríven once or twice since then (about 100 km total).

About 3 weeks ago, I washed the engine and rinsed with low pressure water, and parked it back in the garage.

Drove it today, and started to hesitate it's head off immediately, regardless of what revs I was using.

Is it possible that the fuel has gone stale? I did add premium to the fuel, but that made no difference.

Or is it possible that water has penetrated into somewhere and causing a short?

All responses will be appreciated.

Postby **NitroDann** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:03 pm

First guess, take the leads off and check in the hole where the leads go for 10cm of water. Ive done this one before. :mrgreen:

Dann

hks_kansei · Postby **hks_kansei** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 8:14 pm

the NB is VERY pedantic about water in the plugs.

I got a tiny bit in my plug wells the other day and it started running on 3 cylinders.

so step one, as Dan said, remove the plug leads and check they are dry.

as for the fuel, it's been in the tank for nearly 8 months? it would most certainly have gone stale.

If it's running I'd go for a long drive to basically use up the old fuel, then once that's mostly gone give it a fill with nice fresh fuel (whatever you normally use)

maybe try a bottle of octane booster to try and bring the fuel back a bit? won't be ideal, but should be better than nothing.

slimx · Postby **slimx** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 9:08 am

wouldnt burning that sh*t fuel , sh*t all over your spark plugs?

Drain the tank, use any kind of octane boost or petrol or injcetor cleaner in your tank

fill with BP ULTIMATE or SHELL VPOWER

enjoy!

tasdigi · Postby **tasdigi** » Tue Aug 30, 2011 6:26 pm

Problem solved.

Removed all the water that had landed in the spark plugs wells (and there was quite alot), fitted new plugs, and hey presto, runs like a charm again.

Thanks for the advice and help.

aviper4u · Postby **aviper4u** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 6:07 am

great to hear ,though a good tip mentioned to me in the past is to only wash the motor when its hot and running OR do what i do and avoid washing with water unless absolutely necesary.