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Jetta Stalls in wet weather

My son in college has a 1996 4-door Jetta with a 4 cylinder 115 hp engine and an automatic transmission. It has about 113,000 miles. I runs fine around town but on the highway at highway speeds in rainy weather the engine dies and he has to let it sit at the edge of the road for about 15-20 minutes and then he can start it again and go on for a few miles until it repeats this problem again like clockwork.

There is also a sporadic second problem, in that the transmission will not come out of Park after the car has been turned off and parked for a period of time.

Can anyone shed some light on what the causes of these two problems might be?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide

Reply to
MichaelB
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First thing with the wet stalling is to replace the distributor cap & rotor if it hasn't been done lately. It's a scheduled service for every

30kmiles. Look at the position sensor in the distributor while you've go the stuff off too. If it's cracked, or shows evidence of arcing you'll probably need to replace it too. (don't know if it's available separately or if you have to buy a distributor if it's toast) Also make cure the cap & rotor are seated properly.

Next thing is to take a spray bottle of water and spray it around a running engine in a darkened area. Careful tho'. Don't get caught in the moving parts. Look for sparks/arcing, especially around the spark plug wires, cap and coil.

Another place that I found was potentially problematic was the wiring harness where it passes under the battery. If you don't keep the posts clean, the caustic crud runs down the side of the battery, into the harness, and starts eating up the insulation. What makes it particularly bad is the plastic duct VW used for the harness tends to concentrate the runoff onto the harness and keep it there :( I can imagine if that went on too long, you'd have moisture related problems.

As for the tranny, if it's not the linkage pivots are worn, time for someone else to guess.

Mark '95 Jetta GLS

Reply to
Mark Randol

That could be related to the steering wheel lock. Try turning the steering wheel uphill a bit before trying to take the car out of park.

Reply to
Tom's VR6

It also might have an interlock with the brake pedal (not sure...I know later VWs have this but not sure about mid 90s VWs).

when this problem happens (and assuming it has a shifter interlock), do the brake lamps work? The interlock is often triggered by the brake lamp switch. If that is flaky, it could fail to release the shifter and also fail to light the brake lamps. next time it happens have him get a friend to look at the back of the car and see if the brake lamps are working or not.

Reply to
Matt B.

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