Won't start in a hard rain. Starts ok after it dries out.
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 2:18 pm
My 2002 Pathfinder LE won't start in a hard rain. It turns over vigorously, but won't start. We've had it towed to our trusted mechanic twice and they could not reproduce the problem in the shop. They tested it over and over and it did not fail, so it's not fixed. We have found that after letting it dry it starts fine. We also think that the angle at which it is towed may help and thereby confuse the problem of reproducing the failure in the shop.
Any help would be appreciated, but, as you may be able to tell, I am mechanically ignorant and may not be able to completely understand a complicated answer. Most likely, we would not be doing any repairs ourselves but would like to be able to tell our mechanic the next thing to replace to try to resolve this. I've read, on other websites, that a bad distributor can cause this problem. Since it would be an expensive fix, I thought I would see if anyone can give us more advice. We don't mind spending what it takes, but would like to narrow down the place to start. Thanks, Alison.
Any help would be appreciated, but, as you may be able to tell, I am mechanically ignorant and may not be able to completely understand a complicated answer. Most likely, we would not be doing any repairs ourselves but would like to be able to tell our mechanic the next thing to replace to try to resolve this. I've read, on other websites, that a bad distributor can cause this problem. Since it would be an expensive fix, I thought I would see if anyone can give us more advice. We don't mind spending what it takes, but would like to narrow down the place to start. Thanks, Alison.