VW Golf low idling problem

[KatyD]

I have a 1989 VW Golf that's done around 114,00 Miles. I have recently had a service and MOT done on my car and got everything repaired that needed doing ( even though it was working well before anyway!). Since then my car has been working fine, that was until last week when torrential rain flooded the roads and I had to drive through huge puddles of water. After the fifth puddle my car started shuddering and wanting to stall all the rest of the way home (about 10 miles), with the revs very low the whole way. I managed to get it home and let it dry out. The car started fine when I drove it next after a couple of days but ever since then the car has been Idling very low when Im sitting stationary. The revs are now 900 or lower when Im stationary but sometimes just suddenly drops to around 100-200. Any idea are grately recieved! Many thanks in advance for you help.

[Waggers]

Hi KatyD

Sounds to me like some water found its way into the distributor which would cause the engine to mis-fire (this causes poor running/juddering etc). Are you sure the car had dried out properly after the heavy rain? Have you taken it for a long drive since and really warmed it up? I don't think this will be a serious problem. If you have the know how it may be worth poping the HT leads off and the distributor cap as well to have a quick look. If the car is not stalling I wouldn't worry too much about it. There are other possibilites such as an air leak. Have you got a Haynes manual?