I took my car through the car wash the other day, and when the water came down onto the hood, my car died and smoke came from under the hood. What happened, and can i take it through again without a problem?

 

Sweet Trans Am, what color was the smoke? It was probably the water hitting the hot engine. Does it still run?

 

same thing happened to me, opti got wet. I let it sit for like an hour and mine dried out, and it ran fine afterwords.

I have a vented opti on the 96 though, not sure if yours is. I pretty sure it is though, maybe just go under the car with a hairdryer and see if u can blow the opti dry and get any water out that may have got in there.........

 

Sue the car wash company, ask them where it says you can't wash LT1 cars hahaha you'll prolly win 99% sure.

 

Why the hell would you take your car to a drive thru car wash? You should know better. Wash it by hand, and use Zaino. You should know you can't spray water under the car or in the engine. Now your opti is shot and is going to cost you $600+ unless you install it yourself.

Travis

 

I'd be willing to put money on your optispark being toast. Dunno why that'd happen though, does the carwash there spray the undercarriage? If so, it soaked your opti, in the process toasting it. It's not that hard to replace, but if you brought it to a dealership they'd charge you ~$1100 because they'd charge you out the *** for labor and full list on the part.

For the part, do a search for Jason Cromer on here and he'll get you a great deal.

As for the labor...I wrote it all down in another post on here about 1 week ago. You could do a search for that too.

It's not that hard, and for the inexperienced user (such as myself at the time), but with good hands on with tools...it should take a total of six hours.

Of course, if you wanted to pay me $1100 and you have a decently warm garage, I could come and do it for you.

 

Why don't you try washing your car by hand when it's 20F outside? Let me know how you make out.

There are some of us who aren't as lucky as you living in FL, and have no choice but to go through car washes in the winter, unless we want to look at our cars covered in salt all winter long.

By the way, when I go through the wash (touchless ones) my car always runs very rough for about a minute. But by the time I've gone through the dryer it smooths out again. I'm sure the opti gets slightly moist during the wash but dries up quick. I always make sure I drive my car a good distance after getting it washed so that the opti can fully dry before I shut the engine down.

 

I do the same thing that Patman does. My car runs rough also but it clears right up in about 2 minutes. I am always nervous of it dieing though.

 

is there some freaking plastic bag app. i can wrap my opti in for 2 minutes? i don't feel like pay $1,015.50 for a car wash

 

Yea, most likely the stupid undercarriage wash got the opti wet.

 

check your coil wire. i had the same car wash blues untill i changed mine

 

Hey Scott, nice T/A... copycat

Since you posted I figured I'd see if you were gonna reply... just got my car out of the shop... it looks great... especially without the holes for the front license place bracket...

Give me a call, you have the number...

~ Mike

 

Yes. Check the coil wire & coil. That was my problem. It happend 3 times to me a few years ago. It was embarrasing..

 

Even after a new coil wire and all new wires for that matter, mine still idles rough in the car wash (and in very heavy rain)