No, you should not hear sucking noises coming from your car’s engine. You shouldn’t hear them coming from your truck, utility vehicle, or van’s engine, either. Sucking noises usually point to a vacuum leak in one of the vacuum hoses. If you don’t replace the hose, you will begin to experience engine performance issues as the leak gets worse. Crossroads Automotive can find the vacuum leak and replace the vacuum hose that is in question.
Check Engine Warning
Aside from the sucking noises, one of the first signs that you have an engine vacuum leak is your check engine light will illuminate on your dashboard and not turn off. When a vacuum hose is leaking, excess air is released into the engine. When the engine has too much air in it, this creates a lean fuel mixture. This mixture does not have enough gasoline in it and, as a consequence, your vehicle will suffer from the following engine performance issues.
Acceleration Loss
One of the first things you might notice is that your vehicle’s acceleration is not as responsive with the vacuum leak. This is because the engine is starved for fuel and, as mentioned above, has too much air in it. As you press down on the accelerator, your vehicle’s response might be to stutter, sputter, or not move forward or pick up speed immediately. This is a common problem with a vacuum leak as well as an exhaust system leak or a fuel system clog.
Engine Power Loss
You may experience the same troubles with your vehicle while it is in motion. Again, because the engine is not getting the amount of gasoline that it needs, it will sputter and stutter and might even stall. This will make driving your automobile difficult, as you cannot rely on its performance. Until such time as you get the vacuum leak fixed, your engine will continue to lose power because of the excess air that is being pushed into the combustion chamber.
Sporadic RPMs
This additional air can also affect the revolutions-per-minute or RPMs. Keep an eye on your tachometer if you are experiencing the other symptoms listed above to see if the needle is moving up and down sporadically. This is an indication that there are spurts of air being introduced in the engine and these spurts of air could be coming from the vacuum leak. Another sign of a vacuum leak is consistently higher-than-normal RPMs.
Crossroads Automotive in Topeka, KS, can help you with your automobile’s vacuum leak. Schedule an appointment by calling us today.