I recently had to drive my WRX wagon through 18 hours of blinding snow. During the trip snow got into the intake. Enough to clog the entire system, intake, elbow, airbox and filter solid.

Here's the story:
It started to stumble a few hours into the trip and I pulled off and found the entire front of the car covered in ice and the hood frozen shut, thus no air passing under it for the intake. I clear the ice away, tearing the rubber piece in front of the intake in the process and clear out some ice that was clogging the intake and proceed. The car continues to stumble I repeat the process 4 more times with little success. It continues like this for hours and finally throughs a CEL. I pull into a gas srtation and take the entire intake system apart and find it filled with sow. I dig as much out as I can, spraying an entire can off intake cleaner into the elbow and airbox to help melt the snow and dig it out and clear off the filter and attempt to get it back home. It takes me a few more hours before I get it home and it runs bad the whole way. Once in the garage, I took the entire system apart and cleared the system out completely, using hair dryers and rags to help dry everything.

Unfortunately the car still backfires, stumbles (even at idle) and white smoke pours out the tail pipe. I fear that snow (a.k.a. water) has made it passed the filter and into the turbo and has thus entered into the cumbustion chamber. I know this is major bad news, but how bad can this get. Am I looking at a possible rebuild here? The car is only 2 yrs old and only has 12k on it. I'm not driving it any more and I do plan to take it in once the weather clears a bit. I'm hoping that the warranty will hold-up here, but I have done lots of mods (Unichip, boost controller, VF-22, STi injectors, AVO top mount, turbo-back exhaust with gutted up pipe) so I suspect there is no guarantee.

I would appreciate any thoughts or advice?

 

Do you have a hacked silencer? aka snorkus mod? It's not looking too good for you but maybe we can get you through this mess.


eric

 

check the maf sensor? i have no idea how to clean it, though...

 

that's a good idea... maybe it got caked with salt/sand etc from the snow and you're running too rich. Im not too sure on how to clean it either but i imagine you can use some compressed air, warm water and a soft cloth.

Also, try disconnecting the actual tube beyond the MAF sensor to see if there's signs of debris from the snow water like salt/sand. if there is then you may have sucked it inside... if not, then it may be a good sign that it's just the dirty MAF sensor.


goodluck, eric

 

and get the cel code pulled...

 

weak sauce, hope you can get this fixed.
although it doesn't sound like you will have a lot of luck getting your car fixed under warranty, i guess it wouldn't hurt to try?
they might be understanding. maybe

 

There is a MAF cleaning protocol somewhere around here. I want to say it involves carb cleaner and a plastic bag and some shaking. But I could be wrong.

 

The the intake system is stock, I haven't done the snorkus mod, or hacked up the airbox. I'm not using a stock air filter however.

I was thinking of pulling off the TMIC off and checking it out as well. It looks fine from the outside. Has anyone ever heard of the intercooler taking in snow or ice and sending water into the turbo or throttle body? I would think that wouldn't happen since core temps tend to run around 90-150 degrees. But then I would never have guessed the entire intake system could fill with snow and ice either.

I doubt the MAF would have gotten salt or sand in it. I didn't see any when I cleaned out the intake pieces.

I'm hoping to have the car towed to a dealer soon, so we'll see what happens.

 

think of the rain spots on your car after it rains... there are particles in the water that could go through your filter and into the intake, and then when it dries, well, bad things happen.

 

clean the maf.

brake cleaner, in a bag, with the maf, shake it around.

as far as water getting to the combustion chambers, enough of it to cause a serious problem--HIGHLY unlikely.

jm2c
ken

 

Agreed, the only problem should be with the MAF. It's either dirty or bad. Water won't hurt anything being inside the combustion chamber (it's about half of what exhaust is made of anyways) as long as you didn't get hydrolocked, which is highly unlikely. Clean/replace your MAF, reset the ECU, and things should be fine.