Hello, this is my first post! anyways..


For the past couple months or so Ive been having some strange problems with my car (95 GS auto). It started out as a rough idle. Sometimes it would jump back and forth from about 500-900RPM and the car would shake accordingly. I figured a tune up would fix it, so i replaced sparkplugs, wires, air filter, oil change, A/T fluid flush, etc.

Then it got worse. I began to notice a slight "surge" at regular driving speeds (very irratic and irregular). The idle problem became worse as well. In any gear but "drive" or "reverse", it idles fine, but upon shifting to the afformentioned ones, it stutters. When coming to a stop, the RPMs drop to about 250, than back up to 800, then down, then up, etc, untill they finally stablize to between 500-700. I cleaned the TB; no effect. Time for a more thorough inspection, and heres what Ive found so far:

1) Oil soaked plug electrode in my first cylinder. All plugs have oil around the wire boots. (valve cover leak?). All plugs show signs of carbon fouling. (they have less than 2000 miles on them)

2) Running very rich. exhaust reeks. Evidence of this on the plugs as well. My gas milage is at about 15MPG in mixed driving conditions.

3) Did the "key dance", it came back 11-13-12. I had my timing belt replaced about 10,000 miles ago, and the problems started around that time, so code 11 (skipped tooth) could be plausable.

4) There is no voltage or electrical problem that I have noticed.

5) The condition gets better when the car fully warms, however it does not go away under any circumstance.

6) The car stalls occasionally at stoplights, and occasionally on hard turns.


I have been searching for solutions both on www.dsm.org and here for the past few days, and have gotten some good ideas as to what it may be (fuel injectors? fuel filter? faulty sensor? bad valves?) but it is hard to narrow it down. Im not very mechanicaly-minded, so that doesnt help:) If anyone has ANY ideas on what my problem(s) may be, i would appreciate greatly your input.

Thanks in advance!!

Sounds like your head gasket has a leak, go get it checked out.

hmm.. could be the valve or head gaskets. its definitely not good to have oil in all four cylinders. but some of the symptoms seems like it could be a fault O2 sensor or maybe a very dirty oil filter.. but that would not explain the oil in the wells. have you tried running a compression test?

sounds like the valves. it happened to me and the tip of one of the valves broke off. if you rip the motor apart to get new valves you might as well get the port and polish of the head. buy stainless steel valves.

I have had this same problem with my car... it has never stalled yet, but when it is cold it bounces the RPM's around from about 350 to 1000 at idle. When the car is warmed up I've never had a problem, but I did just want to mention that at the same time i noticed this problem I too had a leaking valve cover gasket which i have yet to replace, but will soon. I'm hoping that fixes the problem. I'm in an automatic, so I don't know if you are also but this is what has happened to me. I'll let you know what I figure out next weekend when I'm fixing this problem.

Thanks so much for all the ideas!! I do have a small pinhole leak in the head gasket (and the valve cover, and the rear-main....I bought the car used), but Im only loosing a maximum of 1/2 quart of oil every 6 weeks or so (and have been for the past 2 years), so im not sure if thats the cause of my problem. I checked the oil for water, and theres no sign of it. My coolant level hasnt dropped either. Im positive its not the oil filter, as it was replaced recently. Im guessing it has to be the valves. Is there any way I can test this myself, or do I just need to take it in?

I also noticed tonight that I have a sever loss of power when i began accelerating, the car just kind of "sputters" up to speed.

Thanks again!


Oh, and namac, that would be great to let me know what you find. Much appreciated!

If you have oil on your plug wires you need to replace the rubber gaskets under the valve cover. You might as well replace the valve cover gasket as well. clean all of the oil off of the surface and use some good ltv blue silicon to seal up the gasket. The replace your plugs. Stay away from platinum they foul pretty easily.

don't forget the obvious....the cam gear and crank alignment. this is easy to check, take the little cover off the cam cover plastic thing and then rotate the engine, you can unplug the 2 relays on the driver side and crank the engine little by little until 2 lines on the cam gears line up. you will see 2 notches on the cam gears, they should line up if they do not then the cams are skipped x number of teeth. i'm pretty sure that this is your problem, or maybe the 02 sensor.
lates
james