Hello

I hope you’re doing well.

I wanted to reach out regarding an issue I’ve encountered with my car. While driving through a deep puddle, the engine suddenly cut off, and I quickly realized I had made a serious mistake. It turns out that the air intake on my Alfa Romeo is located near the left wheel rim to capture the coldest air for the engine. As you can imagine, this caused water to enter the intake, and I know it was my fault—I should have been more careful.

I didn’t try to restart the engine and managed to tow the car to a nearby mechanic. He removed the spark plugs and cranked the engine, finding water inside the cylinders. After that, I took it to my regular mechanic for an oil change and to check the cylinder compression, as water had entered the engine. So far, everything seemed fine—no issues with cranking, and no unusual noises.

A few days later, however, my mechanic called to say that while the car runs fine after a minute or so, it’s slightly unbalanced during the initial start-up. He suspects that there could be a bent rod or a faulty injector. He also mentioned that there’s a 3-bar compression difference between cylinders 1 and 4, which is concerning but not catastrophic—though it does settle down to a 2-3 bar difference after a few minutes. We’ve been testing the injectors to see if that’s the cause.

The car has only 90,000 km on it and was a pretty good deal, so I want to make sure everything is in good shape. From what I understand, the rough idle might not be injector-related, as the compression test was done without diesel in the system. I don’t hear any strange noises (like a bent rod or piston damage), but there is some grey smoke coming out of the exhaust.

My mechanic still believes it could be a very slightly bent rod or a damaged valve, and he’ll let me know next week if I want him to open the engine.

Here’s where I could really use your advice: Should I go ahead and spend the €1,500–€2,000 (I’m from Portugal) to have the engine opened and properly checked? Or should I hold off and just monitor it to see if any major issues arise in the future? I’m hesitant to take unnecessary risks, but with only a 3–4 bar compression difference, I’m unsure if it’s worth the expense right now.

I’d really appreciate your thoughts on this!

Thank you so much for your time and advice

Best regards,