96 Escort lx problem

hello,

Today i noticed that the car misses (dont really know how to describe it) anyways, it kinda shakes and loses power when I step on the gas like 3/4 of the way. It felt like the car jerks back and forth. If I accelerate very slowly, it doesnt happen. Also, when I shift the car to high gear and accelerate, its worst. If i accelerate in 1st gear, it is almost not noticable. What do you think the problem might be? Thanks for the advice.

Replaced plugs and wires lately?

Sounds very similar to what mine was doing recently - turned out to be a bad plug wire. A new set installed, and it was running well again.


Wade

hmm the wires were replaced about 2 years ago and plugs were replaced about 1year ago......do they go bad this fast?

Stranger things have happened.....:screwy:

When it's misbehaving, can you push in the clutch and rev the engine? Does it rev freely (as if nothing is wrong)? If so, that's exactly the way mine was behaving. It only missed (which felt like a "bucking") when there was a load on the motor - accelerating in a higher gear, or really when winding it out, for instance. With no load, it would rev freely to the moon without missing a beat.

Not saying it's definately wires, but it does sound an awful lot like what I went through.


Wade

Thanks for help. I just want to make sure the problem before i start buying things.

today I ask a coworker to test drive my car and he suggested that it might be the transmission or clutch. He said it probably isn’t the wires or plugs because when it idle and rev up, the car seems fine. If it is a problem with the wires like you suggested, does it mean it lost one of the cylinders? if so, why does it idle normally? shouldnt it be shaking a bit?

My friend suggested me to replaces the spark plug, wires, rotor, and distributor cap.. I noticed that the distributor cap is electrical and not mechanical, is it going to be expensive to replace?

Also, I noticed another symptom when at a red light and the rpm gets very low, like below 1000 and I tap abit of gas in neutral, the engine sort of hesitates. If the engine doesn’t get below 1000 or so when I tap the gas, it wont hesitate.

Sorry if I ask too many question and confuses you but any suggestions would help. Thanks

it shouldnt idle that high anyways. 500-700 is normal if its warm. the hesitation could be because when left at idle your cars computer will turn the mixture as lean as it possibly can and still keep the car running for the environment, the time it takes to change back will cause hesitation. If you keep the revs up at the light the computer will assume its not idling and never lean it out not causing hesitation.


it wont skip on 3 cylinders either, it will lack power but at idle it will almost be undetecible to someone who doesnt know what there looking for. The computer will compensate for the lost cylinder and the engine will only shutter the first few seconds after it stops firing. To test for a missing cylinder pull out the wires one at a time sticking them back in before moving to the next. if the engine shutters when the wire is pulled it means that, that cylinder is firing if there is no detecable change it means there is no spark.



and i would start with the plugs and wires, leave the distributor for now.

although you changed the wires two years ago-

Majority say: check the plug wires.

Here is what you can do first:

unplug one wire at a time from the sparkplug and check for signs of arcing inside the boot.
sometime the high voltage spark jumps /shorts to the engine instead of going through the spark plug as it should when that happens over a long period of time you will see the arcing path inside the boot.

You are getting hesitation because the problem is usually in only one of the wires and the car can still function on the other cylinders.
the car runs fine when 100% of the arc makes it to the plug gap as it should; othertimes only a percentage of the arc makes it to the gap - the other percentage gets shorted to the engine block. the percentage varies from time to time as you are driving but when 100% is shorted you get the most hesitation.

look for signs of arcing !

thanks everyone! It was one of the spark plugs. I noticed that the ones that i took out doesnt have the metal tip....the who thing is just white with the metal fork. Did the metal tip worn away completely or are those different kinds of plugs?

I can never remember which is which without looking it up... if the plugs are turning white you are either getting too much air or too much fuel in the mix... you might want to look in to your sensors to make sure the computer is getting the right info when signaling your injectors.