Hey there, I bought a 96 golf off a guy i know a couple months ago and ever since i've been having a problem with it stalling when it gets wet (either rain or car wash). What happens is, The car gets wet and runs fine for about 10 minutes at the max and then starts sputtering, kinda like its choking for air. This happens for about 5 10 minutes maybe and occasionally the rpms will really drop and the little engine shock light will come on (the light thats an engine with a lightning bolt through it) then it will shoot back up to idle but continue to stutter, then eventually it will just stall. Once it stalls it wont start again for about 15 minutes after i un-hook the battery ground and plug it back on and it fires right up again. I've replaced ignition coil, Spark plug wires, and greased up pretty much everything. I also checked the dist. cap and doesnt seem to be wet or arcing inside of it. CANNOT FIGURE OUT WHATS WRONG!! any help at all would be awesome, love the car and i dont want to get rid of it.

 

i had the same problem try checking vacumn lines or in the worst case a new MAF sensor

 

hmm kinda odd it's only when it gets wet. You think it might be just coincidence? If it was vaccum you'd have issues almost all the time, you would notice it for sure. Hard to say. Pretty much try to eleminate everything one by one. Take extreme note of the conditions when it starts happening, just before it happened, while it happened, what you did etc etc. I don't think water has anything to do with it.

-Jeff

 

try and move the earth or protect it with something

 

let us know if you figure out what it is.

have you tried dry gas?
checked the air filter?
i would have checked the dist cap too. how did the rotor look?
is the battery fully charged, terminals and connections clean and dry?

just guessing at this point. sounds like a distributor cap problem but i don't understand why re-connecting the ground (earth) fixes it.
two prime suspects right there.

 

My friend had the same problem, he just replaced his Volkswagen distributor cap and it was fix right away... Or maybe you could try checking the vacuum liner..

Goodluck...