Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting St st st st stuttering Zetec

When merging onto the parkway this morning, and giving the engine gas, instead of the usual buzz and acceleration, my car stuttered and struggled to move. With a complete loss of power, I moved off to the shoulder and put the car in park. A quick nudge of the gas pedal disconfirmed any suspicion of CD4E trouble, (thank god) as the car continued to sputter. It never stalled, however. At the time, I had about an eighth of a tank of gas. I checked to make sure the plug wires were seated properly and that there were no cracks in the insulation. I got back in the car, turned the ignition switch back, waited a few minutes, and than cranked it over again. With some hesitation, the car started up and ran fine. I went to Autozone and grabbed the following items

-5 quarts of Mobil 1 and a new filter (needed anyway)
-new air filter
-new gas filter
-bottle of techron

I filled the gas tank and dropped in the techron and new air filter. As I was already late to work, I didn't have time to put in the new gas filter. I returned to the highway and drove as normal at speeds ranging to 70mph without a problem. I even did a couple of hard launches to see if I could replicate the problem--nothing. I will change the fuel filter and have the oil changed later. For now, I'm puzzled...Fuel pump?? Plugs??

Start small.
Change spark plugs and wires.
Change Coil pack.
This is a common problem. It's happened to me as well.

My Zetec chugs when ever excess power is being used Ie power windows A/C. Engine runs smoothe and then when A/C or windows is used the engine bogs down belts squeel and have been told the car sounds like a rattlesnake.

My guess is it was because you had an 1/8 of a tank of ges and were doing a hard acceleration. Maybe the remaining gas in the tank moved away from the pick up just long enough to allow some air into the line. Don;t let your tank run down that far in the future and I'd almost bet the farm that the problem won't return.

no CEL?

No CEL. I went to Autozone and asked the guy to try to pull the codes. He asked if the light came on and I said "no." He says "No light, no code." Oh well, I'll have to go to the store that I used to work at and borrow their OBD scanner.