Fair Go – A mechanical horror story has put motorist on a collision course with a panel beater.

They fixed her car, but stuffed the motor and have steadfastly refused to fix it or apologise.

The reason why the rotary is easier to flood than a piston engine has everything to do with total chamber surface area and the distance that the fuel needs to travel before it gets ignited. In a rotary, we have an awful lot of surface area that the air and fuel see. In a piston engine, for the most part the air and fuel stay in the same place and just get compressed there. This is minimal surface area and hardly any distance traveled before combustion. Since air and fuel have to travel to the opposite side of the engine in a rotary before it gets ignited, this is a lot of contact with a cold surface. The fuel will stick to the sides easier. It is harder to ignite and there is lots of waste that didn't get completely burned. This is why cars run rich until they are warmed up. They need to in order to get enough fuel into suspension long enough to get burned.

Since we have the possibility of more fuel getting unburned and falling out of suspension, this means that we have seals pulling the fuel along the walls. The shape of the apex seals is rounded slightly. This means that this liquid can get underneath the edges of the apex seal tips. Cold temperatures and slow engine rotation don't help compression at all. Some of this small amount of fuel under the apex seal can cause the seal to move up just slightly. This causes a pressure leak which further reduces compression. It does not take much fluid at all to make this happen. When we don't make compression, the engine doesn't want to start and we keep cranking it. This dumps more fuel into the engine which makes the problem worse and so forth and so on.

Once a rotary gets flooded, it is extremely hard to unflood it. You can not just wait long enough for it to dry out. You'll be waiting a VERY long time. A flooded rotary might not start after months or even years of waiting! You need to get the fuel out. The factory recommendation is to hold your foot to the floor while cranking. This shuts off fuel delivery and allows the fuel to escape through the exhaust. At least it's supposed to. This too is hit or miss as just enough fuel may continuously stay in the engine as opposed to getting out of it and this will keep compression low. You need to get the engine spinning fast enough to overcome the compression loss. You also need to pray that your plugs will still fire as they may be all gummed up and wet. You can pull start any flooded rotary engine and get it to run. If it can't be done with a simple push start and popping the clutch, pull it behind another car. It will start. Depending on the severity of the flooding, it might take a few feet, it might take a few blocks but it will start. Do not take your car to a dealership to fix it. It is easy and you don't need a tow truck.