rough engine trouble

[ricergribbs]

hey all, i have a 96 accord that has about 130k miles on it. in general its doing alright,has a few dings/dents here and there and a few things on the interior. well thing is that its been running really rough for a while now (expected from an engine of this age i guess), well i checked the air filter, spark plugs and both seem fine. any idea what else i could check thats may make it run rough? fuel filter? general wear on the internals? etc. lemme know what u think. and sry for being so generic, but its hard to be specific lol.

[illsmokeu]

define rough!!!! rough could be hesitation in low gears........hesitation on an incline.....engine feeling heav, means u need a major tune up.....but exactly what is rough!!?

[ricergribbs]

just the way the engine sounds and the car seems to shake more then it did before. the engine just sounds like its about to die, its not like my 01 civic which is nice and smooth. and i guess the best way to define it is the engine feels heavy.

[illsmokeu]

u probably need to clean ur points, open the distributor cap and see if it has carbon on the points, or change the spark plugs, and wires, so basically u need a tune up...good luck!

[ricergribbs]

hmm.. alrighty ill check out the wires/distributor. spark plugs were like the first thing i checked but they seem fine. thnx.

[AccordCodger]

Are you talking about idling or driving? You didn't make that very clear. I'm thinking it might be a bad plug wire, and you're only firing on 3 cylinders. That'd be obvious at idle, less so as you get the revs up.

[ricergribbs]

everywhere and anywhere. ill just check out the wires they are prolly bad since i dont think theyve ever been replaced lol.

[WhyteAccord]

It could just probably be the engine. Is your engine itself pretty loud. At 130,000 miles the car should still be running fairly in good condition but if the oil isn't regularly changed, then it will feel like it starts to get heavy (as in, it's not as strong as it use to be.) Trust me, I can feel it in my car at 200,000 miles and it's a 5th Gen. Like everyone else said tune up the car.

[ricergribbs]

will do, and the oil was changed every 3000 miles or less so i dont think that lead to any problems. u guys think that autozone would carry spark plug wires for the 96 accord?

[AccordCodger]

Sure. But you could phone them to make sure they have them in stock.