Check Engine Light & Hesitations

Hi,

I have my Check Engine light on (it goes away every couple of days for a bit) and when I get the code it's 12 33 55.

From what I have seen 33 is the A/C Clutch Relay. The symptom I am having is intermittent hesitation while driving. If I put the gas pedal to the floor it runs fine whenever the hesitation occurs.

Does this sound like a sympton of the A/C Clutch Relay? And is this something I should take in to a dealer to have fixed or is this something I could fix on my own (and what is involved)?

Thanks!

Is your A/C running while it does this? Does it to it with the A/C off?

When it does it, it is very noticable with the A/C off. I thought it might not do it with the A/C on so when I had a chance I turned it on and it still did it - although not quite as badly.

Thats interesting....try changing the clutch relay and see if it helps.

Where is it located? Is it one of the relays in the fuse block?

It's under the hood in the PDC (Power Distribution Center) located right behind the battery. Swap it with your horn relay and honk your horn to see if the relay is good.

OK,

The Check Engine light went out for about a day. On my way to work this morning it came back on after a couple more hesitations wheil driving.

After work I took the fuse out for the Heater/AC to see if maybe it wouldn't hesitate but it still hesitated.

When I got home I checked the error code again but this time it was 12 21 55. (Oxygen Sensor). Would this problem cause hesitations?

After I read your last response I swaped the AC Realy for the Horn Relay and the horn worked.

So your A/C clutch relay is fine and yes a bad or non-working O2 sensor can cause all sorts of problems. Try to get the "P" code, using a scanner, to get the exact problem. Could be upstream or downstream, but more than likely it's your O2 sensor. Check the plugs and wiring and make sure everything looks OK before spending the money on a new sensor. It's located on the exhaust manifold.

what year is it? if after 96, OBD II scanner would be best...

clear trouble codes once again & recheck codes later on to see if either 33 or 21 comes back...

95's are OBD II compliant as well, just not fully compliant.

I got a shop to get the code for me... it's P025. Any thoughts?

umm i think it's missing some #s... should have been a 4-digit one

u know autozone can scan your codes for free, right?

also, i just found out 1st-hand that you can "rent" the tool basically for free if you put a deposit on it...

I had some work done on my brakes and the guy wrote down P025 and said Target idle not reached. Possible misfire bad plugs.

I would just like to confirm this as the plugs and wires were replaced less than 2 years ago.

You should replace your spark plugs every 10,000 miles.

Does this sound like the spark plugs?

Car randomly hesitates while driving... sometimes a sputter while idling at a light. When it hesitates, the only way to accelerate is to put the gas pedal to the floor. The car doesn't feel like it is going to stall - it just feels like your foot is off the gas.

I'm definately not a car expert by any means. I was wondering if that sounded like a fuel filter problem maybe?

If it was a spark plug problem wouldn't the car want to stall? Or at least still have power - but less power if it was only one plug? The car has no power until I floor the gas pedal.

thx

That sounds like spark plug problems to me. Could also be a fuel filter problem, but it's cheaper and easier to replace the spark plugs with the stock copper Champions or copper NGK plugs. And you should change them anyway...they are long overdue apparently.