Herky-**** between 1800 & 2000 rpm

[sandrew]

The car started doing the herky-**** this morning between 1800 (or so) & 2000 rpm. It feels like a torque converter locking then unlocking rapidly or like bouncing off of a rev limiter. It happens in 3rd or 4th at partial throttle. If it did it at WOT it went by too quickly & I didn't notice.

I left the car running when I got home from work and checked the fluid hot. It's about halfway into the cross-hatched area. It's still pinkish and doesn't smell burnt. The fluid was flushed about 12k miles ago.

It does this whether the a/c is on or not.

Any insights would be appreciated.

thanks,

Scott H.

 

[venom]

The car started doing the herky-**** this morning between 1800 (or so) & 2000 rpm. It feels like a torque converter locking then unlocking rapidly or like bouncing off of a rev limiter. It happens in 3rd or 4th at partial throttle. If it did it at WOT it went by too quickly & I didn't notice.

I left the car running when I got home from work and checked the fluid hot. It's about halfway into the cross-hatched area. It's still pinkish and doesn't smell burnt. The fluid was flushed about 12k miles ago.

It does this whether the a/c is on or not.

Any insights would be appreciated.

thanks,

Scott H.

Its probably a coil going bad. Once it gets bad enough it will probably throw a miss fire code. Or your friendly Ford dealer can put the car in a "cylinder balance test" for a one hour diag fee to determine which one it is.

 

[sandrew]

Possibly stupid question: Would it be that rpm-specific? It happend in that exact rpm range every time on the way to & from work yesterday.

thanks,

Scott H.

 

[venom]

Possibly stupid question: Would it be that rpm-specific? It happend in that exact rpm range every time on the way to & from work yesterday.

thanks,

Scott H.

Yes an ignition problem can be that way. I've had them where the coil only acted up when on a slight grade and trying to hold speed. If I rolled into the throttle a bit more to actually accelerate it went away - if I let the speed bleed off it would go away too.

 

[sandrew]

Thank you. It hasn't thrown a code yet, unfortunately. If it hasn't thrown one by next payday (26th) I'll try to get it to the dealer for a cylinder balance test.

Are the COPs used on other Ford cars as fragile/finicky as ours?

 

[escortlvr]

All makes with COP's are as "finicky", but you have to remember that those COP's usually last well over 100,000 miles. Let me know how many times you see an old school cap/rotor/wires last that long

 

[sandrew]

Considering the ones on the car have under 15,000 miles on them, yes, I'd rather deal with spark plug wires & a coil then !@#$ around troubleshooting a temperamental COP and having to remove the surge tank to get at the back ones. On a RWD I might not mind as much since it's (usually) easier to get to all of them but it would still irk me. "New" isn't always better, especially if you can't make it as dependable as the older tech, IMO.

 

[Ian Macoomb]

It's not just our cars. My wife's '03 Altima (2.5) does the same thing. Replaced quite a few coils so far and still have a bad one and the computer won't spit out a code till it gets real bad.

 

[escortlvr]

Considering the ones on the car have under 15,000 miles on them, yes, I'd rather deal with spark plug wires & a coil then !@#$ around troubleshooting a temperamental COP and having to remove the surge tank to get at the back ones. On a RWD I might not mind as much since it's (usually) easier to get to all of them but it would still irk me. "New" isn't always better, especially if you can't make it as dependable as the older tech, IMO.

You buy OEM or aftermarket?

 

[sandrew]

It's not just our cars. My wife's '03 Altima (2.5) does the same thing. Replaced quite a few coils so far and still have a bad one and the computer won't spit out a code till it gets real bad.

I'm sorry to hear that. At least the Altima only has 1/2 the number of COPs to troubleshoot.

Escortlvr, they are OEM. But if I have to replace any more I'm going with Wells or Airtek or whatever they are on E-bay. Over $150 a pop for OEM just isn't going to happen.