Hi Guys ! really hope I can find some salvation here (stuck in a town in Chile without much of honest mechanics or ones that now now to deal with my car, thanks a lot ahead for your reply !!
I am stuck with a new issue on my 1997 1.4l Opel Astra station.
The car has 190K (kilometers)
Issue Description:
- The engine will lose power and the rev's will drop down on steep inclines what will resolute shifting down gears
- If I reach an incline (but not an extreme one) with a good momentum the rev's will not drop and the engine will handle it good and even manage to speed up the hill
- If I reach a sharp incline the rev's and power will drop, it can drop from 80km/h to 30-40km/h
*Pushing the gas paddle all way down will result shaking, engine stutter and rev's and speed still drops down
- Starting an incline without a good momentum/from zero will result a very low speed and and huge effort out of the engine
*usually in steep inclines I will have to shift between 1st and 2nd gear (mainly 1st)
*even if the revs are high on 2nd gear, shifting up to 3rd will result a rev's and power loss and shifting back down
-Cruising/accelerating at flat surface will not result any problems unless I try to push to gas paddle all way down - that can make few small jumping feeling and engine stutter like I mentioned before
Other related information:
- Issue started appearing after the last work by the last mechanic (compression issue on the 4th piston) fuel filter have been changed as well
- yesterday I brought the car to another mechanic that denied compression issue, also the engine didn't had problem while we disconnected each Cylinder separately
- Exhaust has some exploding sounds on idle and it sucks air once in few seconds (did the $ bill test) (burned/loose exhaust valves can cause this ??)
- Catalytic have been replaced
- Check engine is not on
Last mechanic suggested it is slipping clutch but it's not sound 100% to me since the issue is not noticeable when there is not high load on the engine and the revs go Down and not up while the car loses force
What is your guess? what should I check first ?