(T) Marea 20v, water in spark socket

Hi

Just bought Fiat Marea Weekend HLX, four years old, with 68k mileage.
Car hasnt moved at least for 5 month. Everything was fine when I drove home, about 40km.

Next day after starting the engine, the engine sounded jerky and couple of bangs was heard, sounded like bad sparks plugs.
After removeing the blastic cover and spark wires, I noticed there was about 0.5 inch water in the left spark plug socket. Other sockets were dry. I dry up the left socket, but the problem remains - jerky engine. Possibly the spark plug itself is damaged.

Now the question is where the water came from??
1) Could it be coolant fluid?
2) Could it be water from high pressure engine wash?

engine wash is a possebility, check for spark on all plugs then drive it to see if water shows up. Make sure you dry up all the plugs, it might be a good idea to clean the plugs while checking for spark.

Hi and welcome to the forum
Its unlikely to be coolant in the spark plug sockets, more likely to be from a jet wash.
Check and clean the plugs, the plug coils and coil connectors as smokeme suggests.
Check the spark plug bay cover for any signs of long term water ingress, but its unlikely to be road spray as they are normally a good fit.
Let us know how you get on.

OK, dryed and cleaned sparks and everything seemed ok, no water showing up.
But here comes another problem, engine really lacks power. Sometimes even suddenly drops rpm.
Today I replaced all the sparks but problem remains
Where to look for next? Fuel filter?

Thanks
Elkur

I had a regata once that did something similar, might be unrelated, but the HT leads were replaced and it was fine ever after! Put the car in a dark garage with the bonnet up and let it tick over, watch for sparks flying about the engine bay ;-)

Bought a Polo in 98 ( new ) and within 5000 miles the HT leads were f**ked so it just shows...

I agree with DaveP, check the leads(they´re cheap to replace). It could also be the fuel filter/contaminated fuel(water) or an intermintent fuel pump problem.

Thanks

Seemed like that the engine was still suffering under jet wash.
After driving about 150km now engine runs smoothly and the power is back also

E.

Glad to be of service, hope you stick around the forum

Nice to hear you got sorted.

DaveP, smokeme: 20v does not have HT leads.

Dave

I was refering to the spark plug leads donno what are HT leads(though it was the same)

So how does it get the spark to the spark plugs? :-)

I think they mean the ones with built in coil packs

Yes, each spark plug has its own small coil plugged onto the top of the plug. They are fed directly from the electronics. So very little HT to go wrong.

The down side is they are £80 each from Fiat and you need 5 of them.

Dave