So apparently my distributor has water in it. This is apparently the cause of my car’s stalling while I’m driving. It’s fine if I’m giving it gas, but when I allow the RPMs to fall below roughly 1200, the car will frequently stall. This happens more often when there is water on the road, as there was today when it got warm enough to rain and melt some snow.
I recently had a car inspection, which is how I found out about the cause of this problem in the first place. Today I decided that it was fairly unsafe to be driving a car with this issue, especially with spring thaw only 6 weeks away, and decided to get it fixed. Early next week I have the option of buying a new distributor for roughly $400, or a used one for about half of that.
The car (van, actually) is old, small and light, and I will need use of it for most likely 1 to 2 more years. It has roughly 75,000 miles on it. Not knowing much about cars, I turn to you all.
Will the used distributor serve my purposes, or will I be buying another one next year? Will it put more wear on other parts of the engine if I buy a used one?
Normally the only concern with a used distributor vs. new is its expected lifespan, as some has obviously already been used up. Typically they last for many years and many tens of thousands of miles, and in my experience the great majority of vehicles never need to have the original one replaced. So the odds are that a used one would serve your needs, though it would be helpful to know how many miles are on it to judge whether the particular used one you would be getting is a good bet.
Going back a step, though, in 35 years of fixing cars professionally I have never heard of water in a distributor causing the symptoms you describe. Water in the distributor cap, yes, but not the distributor itself. Even if water is getting into the main body of the distributor, it’s most likely getting there through the cap or the seal between the cap and the distributor body. My advice is to make sure you are clear on the terms being used, not mistaking a distributor for a distributor cap. If indeed you’re being told that the distributor itself needs to be replaced, I’d get a second opinion. Distributor caps are a heck of a lot cheaper than distributors.
Thanks Gary, I actually ended up just getting the used distributor. I neglected to mention in the first place that sometimes when I’d put it in gear, I would have close to no power. And it wasn’t just the normal “I’m in too high of a gear” feeling. Sometimes I’d put it in first and let the clutch out, and then the engine would take a few seconds to fully engage the gear. Same with 2nd and 3rd, and to a lesser extent the 2 highest gears.
Anyway the new (used) distributor cleared that problem up as well as the stalling issue. I did ask if it was the distributor itself, or just the cap, but I couldn’t really understand the answer very well. Thanks for the advice, though.