Hiccup when stopped in Drive

[Old trs]

Recently when my car is stopped in Drive it hiccups, sort of like a misfire, that produces a noticeable jerking feeling. It is irregular, maybe 10 times in a minute, but seems to be more frequent lately. If I shift to N or Park everything is smooth - no hiccups.
Car is a 98 Contour, Duratec, ATX, 144,000 km, new ATX fluid, plugs, about 40,000 km ago. No Check Engine Light, ATX fluid is clean and level is OK. I read some posts about a misfire problem that turned out to be a fuel pump, but I'm doubtful that's my problem because the car runs fine at all speeds and at idle if its not in Drive. Anyone come across this before?

 

[AliasJerk]

could be looking at an ignition issue, spark plug wires would be my guess.

however, once you start getting to higher mileage, certain rubberized parts attached to the motor and trans tend to wear out, my guess is trans mount is probably starting to kick the bucket, which would allow vibrations from the motor and trans to become more noticeable, a good way to test this, if you have this hickup problem while you are in drive, and you switch to neutral, and the problem almost entirely stops, its probably a engine/trans mount related issue. Start with the cheap fixes first, do new spark plug wires and see if that helps, then inspect your trans mount and roll resistors for signs of wear (cracking, sagging), I have worked on contours literally where the rubber insert has ripped in half, or the center bolt in the trans mount (on the MTX) has broken in half.

 

[Tony2005]

Recently when my car is stopped in Drive it hiccups, sort of like a misfire, that produces a noticeable jerking feeling. It is irregular, maybe 10 times in a minute, but seems to be more frequent lately. If I shift to N or Park everything is smooth - no hiccups.
...?

I would check the engine/tranny mounts first.

 

[Old trs]

Solved with new plug wires

Solved with new plug wires

Replacing the plug wires has solved the problem. I guess that the misfiring was only noticeable under the bit of load when stopped in Drive, even though it was probably happening at other times. I haven't checked the engine/ transmission mounts yet, but will do that too.

Thanks for the advice.