I went down and washed my truck at the quarter car wash today and when I was driving it home the truck would sputter badly like it was missing on a few cylinders. I checked my intake because that was my first thought but nothing was wet, it was bone dry. The only other thing I can think of would be were the plug wires connect to the coil packs. How do I fix this? Its gonna cause some big problems when I go play in the mud.
the truck is a 98 taco with a 2.4l in it.

 

When I had my 02 Tacoma, that happened. Did you spray the engine compartment? It only ever happened once and that was after spraying the engine. Once everything dried, it was fine. FWIW, I coated every bit of that motor (3.4L) with mud and the only issue I ever had was clogging the radiator fins.

 

I ran out of money before i got that far, i only had the hood popped

 

got an idea thought for you have seen a few times.. pull your plug wires and look down the holes for water if there is wich would make sense for the misfire after wash. then grab some wd-40 and spray the wires and the holes. no need to wipe off any of it it will stay there wont hurt wires and will act as buffer from moisture causeing another misfire.. we do-it to our older distributor systems in the cap for same style issue

 

would that work at the coil packs also??

 

Good posting...but what I did was roll up a paper towel to dry it out....put the plug wires back in and keep on truckin'

You could also have a bad plug wire...check them for cracks, etc.

 

The plug wires are almost brand new I got them about a year ago, It takes the truck about 10 or 15 minutes to start working fine again I just dont want to mess the truck up even though its been through worse.

 

There could still be a bad one, but it is of course not very likely. Did you try drying the connections around the spark plugs? I would say if it is water in something else it should eventually dry out...

Is there a chance you could have gotten water in the gas tank. This happened on my Jeep once after only a small rain. It affected it immediately...I was surprised how fast it got into the system. I just ran some water remover in the tank and it was fine. It made the engine run very rough and sputter. Just a thought!

Good luck...let us know what you find...

 

i washed my air filter and didn't let it dry before I oiled it, got water on my MAF. so check that, 2 screws. Ran like Poo, dried it off dryied out my filter and it ran like a champ.

 

Could be wires, but more likely a coil pack or a bad plug boot on the coil. Check your coil boots for brown/black discoloring and feel them. They should be semi soft and rubbery (flexable). If they feel hard and crunchy (crack or crunch when you flex them), they are bad. I had this issue with a boot. Made for bad running when I washed it just like you described.

BTW.. My fix (since I couldn't afford a new one) was a few wraps with electrical tape.