Engine Power loss while driving

[deaz]

I was wondering if anyone has ever had a problem, and perhaps a cause (if not solution) to the following...
While I'm driving, mainly while the engine is still warming up, when I am in 4th or 5th gear, and simply maintaining speed, the car will all of a sudden jerk. not anything major, but you can tell that all of a sudden the engine stopped moving the car. Is it a tranny issue, or engine? Air filter isn't dirty, plugs aren't more than 4 months old, oil is fresh, and as far as the tranny, the manual tran fluid is practically brand new. I am coming up due for a timing belt however. Could this be a problem?

Anyway, my car is a 98 accord lx, 5-speed, 4cyl w/ 89k miles.


Any help anyone can give would be great, or if you need more information, I'll be happy to give it.

Thanks!

[unknownforever]

What do you mean by the engine stop moving the car?

[Maple50175]

Maybe your transmisstion

[deaz]

What I mean is like... How do I explain it. While your driving, with the accelerator in the same position, the car will slow for a split second. I dunno what that would be considered... hesitation? Not sure.

[unknownforever]

When that happen are you still pushing the gas? Going up a hill? Any thing like that?

[deaz]

Nope, flat level surface. But hell, its even done it downhill, lol. Maybe I should go and check all the sensors. Since it doesn't seem to happen when the engine is hot, maybe it has something to do with a sensor reporting a wrong value. Just gotta find my multimeter now.

[mlopez69]

Did you ever find out what was wrong? Your problem sounds just like mine.

[blacknight]

My wife had the same problem in her 99 Altima. It's like the engine just shut off and suddenly jumped back on while she was driving. I changed the plugs/wires and filter. I also had the fuel injectors cleaned but it continued. I took it to the Nissan dealership and the tech said it was the aftermarket alarm that was causing the problem. So after taking out teh alarm (took me 2 hours) the problem was still there. I took it back to the dealer and it was there for 4 days. I told the tech I think it's something electrical and he agreed. The only downside is that it's hard to find an electrical problem which explains why it took so long. When they found the problem the repaired it at no charge since he originally said it was the alarm and I took it out but the problem was still there.

The problem was a broken wire in a wire harness under the hood. when ever the car was cold it would be fine. But when heat generates under the hood, the wire covering gets soft and becomes flexible which causes the two broken wires to lose contact every now and then.

Good luck on finding the problem