The dykemobile is having issues
Mar. 5th, 2008 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
semperfionaYesterday morning I drove to work with no problems, though the traffic was worse than normal due to the incipient snowstorm.
$COMPANY sent us home about 3:00 since the weather had worsened considerably through the day. From the moment I started the car, I noticed that it was acting weird. The revs were all wrong for the gear it was in, it would be very very sluggish and then jerk forward suddenly 10 mph faster, and when I was forced to stop for a traffic jam and sat in neutral for a minute the car shuddered for a few seconds and then stalled.
It felt sort of like trying to drive with the parking brake on, so while I was stopped, I set and unset the brake several times on the theory that maybe it was stuck or frozen. It felt sort of like trying to drive on the last ounce of gas in an empty tank, and there was a faint smell of gasoline--though with the number of cars surrounding me the odor could have been from any one of them.
I called![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ohari and he suggested that maybe there was ice in the fuel line, so I made my way to an exit and a gas station, put some STP in the tank, and made sure to kick all the visible snow off the bottom of the car for good measure. I crawled home eventually but the symptoms never ceased.
This morning was more of the same. When I described the symptoms to the team, Robert suggested maybe a manifold leak, a gasket wearing out, or an emissions sensor problem. Whatever all that means.
These symptoms are similar to a cluster of issues I had with the car late last summer. After I first noticed them, and because the car was well into its second hundred thousand miles, I had the clutch replaced. We promptly drove it to Alabama, and suffered the same issues the whole way there and most of the way back...after which the problems stopped completely. There have been brief moments when it has come back for an hour or so and then vanished again, but this is back to the worst of it.
Meep. And here we were going to be back on stable financial ground, and even have some extra due to tax refund. Sigh.
$COMPANY sent us home about 3:00 since the weather had worsened considerably through the day. From the moment I started the car, I noticed that it was acting weird. The revs were all wrong for the gear it was in, it would be very very sluggish and then jerk forward suddenly 10 mph faster, and when I was forced to stop for a traffic jam and sat in neutral for a minute the car shuddered for a few seconds and then stalled.
It felt sort of like trying to drive with the parking brake on, so while I was stopped, I set and unset the brake several times on the theory that maybe it was stuck or frozen. It felt sort of like trying to drive on the last ounce of gas in an empty tank, and there was a faint smell of gasoline--though with the number of cars surrounding me the odor could have been from any one of them.
I called
ohari and he suggested that maybe there was ice in the fuel line, so I made my way to an exit and a gas station, put some STP in the tank, and made sure to kick all the visible snow off the bottom of the car for good measure. I crawled home eventually but the symptoms never ceased.This morning was more of the same. When I described the symptoms to the team, Robert suggested maybe a manifold leak, a gasket wearing out, or an emissions sensor problem. Whatever all that means.
These symptoms are similar to a cluster of issues I had with the car late last summer. After I first noticed them, and because the car was well into its second hundred thousand miles, I had the clutch replaced. We promptly drove it to Alabama, and suffered the same issues the whole way there and most of the way back...after which the problems stopped completely. There have been brief moments when it has come back for an hour or so and then vanished again, but this is back to the worst of it.
Meep. And here we were going to be back on stable financial ground, and even have some extra due to tax refund. Sigh.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 06:13 pm (UTC)Is there a correlation with damp weather?
The intermittent nature of the problem is more suggestive of an electrical problem than a fuel or gasket problem.
It sounds similar to problems I had with my 93 Nissan that were solved with all new high voltage ignition wires and distributor cap.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 07:32 pm (UTC)That being said, I had a problem with the Escape a few months ago that sounds very much like what you said - feels like driving with the emergency brake on - intermittent sluggish and then jerk forward. Turns out it was the engine missfiring. I had never heard of that before but my little car had a light to tell me that was what was going on. It said if it goes away and not comes back - don't worrry about it but if it persists - get it checked out. It could just be the sparkys not sparking correctly. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 12:17 am (UTC)Misfiring is as old as infernal combustion engines. :)
All it means is the spark that ignites the fuel/air mixture is either not occurring, or occurring at the wrong time, on one or more cylinders. There are a lot of possible things that can cause this. Dirty or worn out spark plugs are one of the more common and predictable causes.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 09:10 pm (UTC)To me it sounds like you might have rust in the gas tank and bits of it are clogging up the gas line before getting worked out (I had an old car that did that, eventually I got a filter for the gas line that I could pull out and clean).
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 09:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 09:26 pm (UTC)But at least I did have the money to do so, thanks to tax refund, and I now have a functional car.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 10:56 pm (UTC)