FightingChance
Probationary Member
- 5
- 0
- Oct 23, 2002
This one has some history. '97 Eagle Talon TSi AWD, 5 sp, 75k miles. (for sale!)
Approx three years and 28k miles ago, I was having an odd problem with the car. When in 5th gear, on the highway, if I would accelerate as if to pass someone the car would stumble badly (almost a very fast thump thump thump, as if the engine were studdering). If I accelerated just a little bit though, it was okay. The behavior happened less in 4th, even less in 3rd and not at all in 2nd and 1st.
My dad and I looked over the car to make sure it wasn't something simple, and we found something weird. The spark plugs, when using a plug wrench to unscrew them, were not tight - some were only hand tight, and could be unscrewed with the fingers. So we bought a new set of cheapie Champion plugs from Autozone (the old plugs weren't really fouled, but we thought we should replace them anyway.) My dad tightened them by hand to where he thought they were in right (he has a good mechanical knowledge of cars), and after a test drive, all the power was back and none of the symptoms.
By the way, I never got a check engine light, and the temp, oil and boost meters never showed any anomolies.
Fast forward a year and a half, and the same thing starts to happen in the dead of winter. I kinda let it go because it's cold out and I was just driving to work and back. This time though, it got progressively worse, to where the symptoms would show up in all gears, and my idle would feel like it would miss every 6 seconds or so. It actually degraded so far that the car wouldn't maintain idle and stalled out near my house. Again, after checking the car over, the spark plugs were unfouled but where terribly loose - so loose I think compression was actually blowing by them. New Champion plugs from Autozone again, same guy tightening them (pretty tight - I actually told him to remember it's an aluminum block and not an iron one), problem went away entirely.
Now, 4 months later, I'm on the highway hitting the gas pretty hard and it's doing it again, what feels like even faster this time. The only other pertinent information I have is that at 40k miles, I got my dealership to cover under the used card warranty I got a block, crank and pistons replacement due to crankwalk of the previous engine. (head and accessories the same.)
I'm at a loss - I'm happy that I've been able to fix this with something so simple but it sounds so ludicrous that spark plugs could back themselves out of a block like that. Any suggestions?
Approx three years and 28k miles ago, I was having an odd problem with the car. When in 5th gear, on the highway, if I would accelerate as if to pass someone the car would stumble badly (almost a very fast thump thump thump, as if the engine were studdering). If I accelerated just a little bit though, it was okay. The behavior happened less in 4th, even less in 3rd and not at all in 2nd and 1st.
My dad and I looked over the car to make sure it wasn't something simple, and we found something weird. The spark plugs, when using a plug wrench to unscrew them, were not tight - some were only hand tight, and could be unscrewed with the fingers. So we bought a new set of cheapie Champion plugs from Autozone (the old plugs weren't really fouled, but we thought we should replace them anyway.) My dad tightened them by hand to where he thought they were in right (he has a good mechanical knowledge of cars), and after a test drive, all the power was back and none of the symptoms.
By the way, I never got a check engine light, and the temp, oil and boost meters never showed any anomolies.
Fast forward a year and a half, and the same thing starts to happen in the dead of winter. I kinda let it go because it's cold out and I was just driving to work and back. This time though, it got progressively worse, to where the symptoms would show up in all gears, and my idle would feel like it would miss every 6 seconds or so. It actually degraded so far that the car wouldn't maintain idle and stalled out near my house. Again, after checking the car over, the spark plugs were unfouled but where terribly loose - so loose I think compression was actually blowing by them. New Champion plugs from Autozone again, same guy tightening them (pretty tight - I actually told him to remember it's an aluminum block and not an iron one), problem went away entirely.
Now, 4 months later, I'm on the highway hitting the gas pretty hard and it's doing it again, what feels like even faster this time. The only other pertinent information I have is that at 40k miles, I got my dealership to cover under the used card warranty I got a block, crank and pistons replacement due to crankwalk of the previous engine. (head and accessories the same.)
I'm at a loss - I'm happy that I've been able to fix this with something so simple but it sounds so ludicrous that spark plugs could back themselves out of a block like that. Any suggestions?
