Vapour Lock

Rally

Rally

Forum Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2008
Messages
3,928
Location
Sydney
Car Year
1999
Car Model
WRX
Transmission
6 Speed
I thought the days of vapour lock disappeared years ago- but perhaps not. Yesterday I was driving home in the 41 degree heat I noticed the car surging and momentarily cutting out on light throttle. I suspected at the time either vapour lock or dodgy fuel. This morning I got up- it was around 23 degrees and the car was fine- so that ruled out dodgy fuel. Then again this afternoon when it heated up again to 41, the problem returned. Is anyone else experiencing hot weather suffereing the same malaise? (I was running on empty yesterday, full tank today, but that is normal.)
 
No problems with my Forry doing anything of the sorts in the heat either yesterday or today (am 22 deg C: pm 40+ deg C) or any other time for that matter.

Petrol is at about the half way mark by the way.

Regards
Mr Turbo
 
This sounds very similar to the problem that plagued Blubaru ('03 Foz X), very intermittently and seemingly heat related. Wish I had answers for you, but we were never able to come up with a definite one.:confused: Ignition coil, fuel filter, spark plugs, front O2 sensor were all addressed, but never solved the problem. Ultimately this is why we sold her.

Hope you can sort it out!!!
 
It was 44c here the other day. No issues, aircon on full blast the whole time and was on the highway sitting on 130km/hr. But mines an N/A.
 
You should check and see if it's throwing any codes. Not all will result in a CEL coming on. It could be a flaky sensor from the heat. Could also be fuel tank related, like a clogged vent or bad carbon canister.
 
The Forrie is NA. It does not do it at higher speeds- just light throttle around 40-50. I will check the fault codes- I've already had that in mind.
 
Yes, had some problems yesterday as well.

I've been getting CEL regularly (which the reader I bought cannot return a code for :twisted:) and some hesitation for a while now which I assume is related, but it was much worse in the 42 degrees C yesterday. Also mainly at lower revs and light throttle.
 
Mmm, slightest hesitation 6.00pm (5.00 'solar' time) at about 80kmh / 50 mph.

This thread reminds me of vapour lock in my beetle ... The John Muir solution to vapour lock in air cooled flat engines ... park under a tree to allow engine and driver to cool down, then go on your way with a smile! Gotta love the 1970s! Muir was uber :cool:! :biggrin:
 
simxs said:
Yes, had some problems yesterday as well.

I've been getting CEL regularly (which the reader I bought cannot return a code for :twisted:) and some hesitation for a while now which I assume is related, but it was much worse in the 42 degrees C yesterday. Also mainly at lower revs and light throttle.
Click to expand...

I should also have mentioned that I've never had particular problems in the heat before, including a 44 degree day last summer.

After having the problem worsen today however I plugged in my OBD reader again and cleared the code (that it has never been able to specify). This cleared the CEL (as expected) and also seemed to put the hesitation problem back to being only as bad as it was prior to the last couple of days. Then I got some upper engine cleaner and put it through as per the instructions (some black smoke resulted!). This helped a little again as far as the hesitation goes.

Finally, I ran an OBD scan again and a P0030 (front O2 sensor) resulted - strange that it would only specify the code once the error was cleared...

Anyway, in summary, my car obviously has some other issues and the heat made the symptoms worse.
 
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