Rain/wet pavement issue and noise

[jkpatrick]

I have a 2000 Solara SE, 4 cylinder. When I drive over puddles (sometimes even small ones) or lots water on the freeway, it sounds like my car is down shifting and losing power. sounds like I'm pulling a ton of weight at 60 mph at 1st gear. If the ground doesn't splash much, I don't have any issues. However, I don't lose any power to anything and my RPMs do not go up. Just it makes a loud humming/vibrating sound like I've downshifted twice at freeway speeds or something. It only happens if I am pressing on the gas pedal. If I let go, the issues goes away, but if I press the gas again, it happens. After about 20 seconds or so and I don't hit any more puddles or saturated roads, it is ok. I feel the vibration at my feet and seat, but not at the steering wheel. My steering is fine, my speeds and acceleration are fine. however, the more I press on the gas, the louder the sound gets.

It appears that the water is getting somewhere underneath and then it dries out. I don't believe it's the air intake, as this has been going on for 4-5 years and I think if it was the air intake, I would have engine issues by now.

Any ideas? thanks

[Akfahad]

not familiar w/ the 4 cylinder as i have the 6, but this used to happen to my folks' old toyota van.....whenever you hit a puddle on the right side, you press the gas and it wouldn't go anywhere, it felt like there was no throttle response. If you lifted the seat to get to the engine and sprayed some WD-40 on the plugs, problem went away.

Not entirely sure (probably not) that this is your issue as I'm sure plug placement has come a long way since then, just giving you an idea of what we had to do with our older car. Hopefully you can narrow this down.

[jkpatrick]

thanks, yeah I don't lose any power and I get full throttle response, just a loud vibrating type noise.