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Misfire or stumble uphill or accelerating on freeway ramp

2

2000Contour

New CEG'er
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Nov 2, 2006
Messages
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My 2000 Contour V6 auto has developed an intermittent stumble or misfire on hard acceleration going onto the freeway or uphill at about 35-45MPH. It jerks the car briefly between the 2000-2500RPM range. Once it is up to freeway speeds it is fine. No CEL has come on. It happens 2 or 3 times a day on a 160mi daily commute. Gas mileage is still great 27-29MPG every fillup. The problem does not happen during low speed driving around town The last problem I had was that it ran out of fuel with about 2 gallons still in the tank. With info from this forum I removed the fuel pump, cleaned the disc and sock filters to correct that problem. It has 110000 miles and about 20K on Bosch plugs. Any ideas?
 
Misfires under load are usually spark related. Check the condition of your plug wires and coil towers (the contact inside the coil tower should be bright and shiny). I won’t mention your choice of plugs but go get a set of the correct autolite or motorcraft.

jeff
 
Also check each spark plug wire boot to make sure there is a good amount of di-electric grease in the boot to keep it from arcing.

I had a misfire and it was due to one boot not having enough di-electric grease in it.
 
Not being very knowledgeable about cars, I was wondering how you can tell a stumble or misfire? The reason is that I have what sounds like similar symptoms ... on my way to work this morning, my '99 SVT (38,000 miles) started vibrating very badly at idle, with almost no power in second gear. The car was audibly grumbling .. i.e., the engine did not sound smooth but instead, almost like a 2-stroke engine (notable "pop-pop-pop-pop" - ever heard a go-kart at Disneyland?). Soonafter, a CEL came on.

$184 later, the dealership tells me that one of the spark plugs is bad, which is strange to me since the car only has 38,000 miles and because a CEL came on, which I did not think could be caused by a bad plug alone. Of course, the service manager wants to charge $600 for replacing all plugs and wires, with the possibility of additional problems yet to be discovered once the wires and plugs are replaced.

I'm sorry for hijacking your thread but since it sounds like it may be similar, I was wondering if anybody here might have an opinion as to my dealership's analysis and whether they may be jerking me around?

Thanks,
Dave
 
Last edited:
dcl said:
Not being very knowledgeable about cars, I was wondering how you can tell a stumble or misfire? The reason is that I have what sounds like similar symptoms ... on my way to work this morning, my '99 SVT (38,000 miles) started vibrating very badly at idle, with almost no power in second gear. The car was audibly grumbling .. i.e., the engine did not sound smooth but instead, almost like a 2-stroke engine (notable "pop-pop-pop-pop" - ever heard a go-kart at Disneyland?). Soonafter, a CEL came on.

$184 later, the dealership tells me that one of the spark plugs is bad, which is strange to me since the car only has 38,000 miles and because a CEL came on, which I did not think could be caused by a bad plug alone. Of course, the service manager wants to charge $600 for replacing all plugs and wires, with the possibility of additional problems yet to be discovered once the wires and plugs are replaced.

I'm sorry for hijacking your thread but since it sounds like it may be similar, I was wondering if anybody here might have an opinion as to my dealership's analysis and whether they may be jerking me around?

Thanks,
Dave
Click to expand...

This is why I hate the dealership. Freaking crooks!! *******s!!
 
How long has this been happening?

Potentially:

Bad fuel from a station ( gunk gets stirred up after a truck puts new fuel in)
Bad gunk got stuck in your fuel filter (replace fuel filter)
Bad gunk got stuck in your injectors (run injector cleaner)
Dead hampster in wheel (get new hampster or for more HP get a ferret)
 
dcl said:
Not being very knowledgeable about cars, I was wondering how you can tell a stumble or misfire? The reason is that I have what sounds like similar symptoms ... on my way to work this morning, my '99 SVT (38,000 miles) started vibrating very badly at idle, with almost no power in second gear. The car was audibly grumbling .. i.e., the engine did not sound smooth but instead, almost like a 2-stroke engine (notable "pop-pop-pop-pop" - ever heard a go-kart at Disneyland?). Soonafter, a CEL came on.

$184 later, the dealership tells me that one of the spark plugs is bad, which is strange to me since the car only has 38,000 miles and because a CEL came on, which I did not think could be caused by a bad plug alone. Of course, the service manager wants to charge $600 for replacing all plugs and wires, with the possibility of additional problems yet to be discovered once the wires and plugs are replaced.

I'm sorry for hijacking your thread but since it sounds like it may be similar, I was wondering if anybody here might have an opinion as to my dealership's analysis and whether they may be jerking me around?

Thanks,
Dave
Click to expand...
600 to change all plugs and wires. Tell them to go ???? themselves. You will be able to change your plugs yourself if you follow the how to on this site in about 1-2 hours even with no experience (I just did it). New plugs and wires can be had for less than 100 bucks for good stuff too. And if you need to buy all the tools to do it, that will be maybe another 50 bucks. Or you could try another mechanic.

THE DEALERSHIP IS RAPING YOU at $600 bucks.

Oh, and as mentioned above, could be a bad tannk of gas.
 
dcl said:
...I'm sorry for hijacking your thread but since it sounds like it may be similar, I was wondering if anybody here might have an opinion as to my dealership's analysis and whether they may be jerking me around?

Thanks,
Dave
Click to expand...
Drive to Autozone or Advance and get the code(s) read. Then post the exact code(s) here and we will be able to go from there.
 
Followup solution on misfire/stumble

Followup solution on misfire/stumble

I checked the plugs visually and wires with an ohm meter and did not find anything out of ordinary. I then disconnected and plugged the vac hose to the EGR valve and the problem was gone. Reconnected and problem returned, so I bought a new EGR valve from Napa and its been running great since installation. Must have been a sticking or irratic valve causing excessive introduction of exhaust to the intake.
 
Thanks!

Thanks!

2000Contour said:
I checked the plugs visually and wires with an ohm meter and did not find anything out of ordinary. I then disconnected and plugged the vac hose to the EGR valve and the problem was gone. Reconnected and problem returned, so I bought a new EGR valve from Napa and its been running great since installation. Must have been a sticking or irratic valve causing excessive introduction of exhaust to the intake.
Click to expand...

I also had the sub 3,000 rpm stumble and new plug wires didn't fix the problem. Based on your post I replaced the EGR valve today and it seems to have solved the problem. Thanks for the post!
 
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