Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Zetec Maintenance MISFIRES AHOY!

Sorry guys, this is a lot to read, but its very in depth. Message me on AIM for any questions

AIM: AliasJerk

So, heres the deal. In my last topic, I said I felt like something was wrong with my transmission, now from what I have been told by various people. I actually have a misfire... Again... I took my dad for a ride in it (he has an extensive car knowledge) first thing out of his mouth when he felt it was "misfire." This baffled me, for one My dad and I replaced the Coil and the Spark plugs when one of the cylenders stoped fireing arround January or Febuary. Problem fixed, the Spark plugs in there were the origionals... 101K miles and the origionals were going still. Anyways. about a month if not less after that I started to get a misfire, my dad said I had to replace the spark plug wires, so I went to autozone, payed $30 and got some I believe Bosche spark plug wires. We replaced them, everything was cool for a month, but I kept noticeing a slight bouncing when I would be sitting in 3rd or 4th gear and going down the street at arround 35-45. As well as the occasional miss when I would be accelerating in 2nd gear, and when I say acclerating, I mean Heavy traffic, or getting onto the freeway. Then about a week after this is very noticeable Im coming home on the freeway and the car is just missing like crazy on the on rap in every gear from 3rd. SO for all of the brilliant car minds of the CEG site. WHAT might I have to do?

New parts include:
New Timing belt
New Bosche (I think) spark plug wires
new Champion Platinum Spark Plugs
New Coils.

Ive checked the wire connections, as well as my dad has and they all are tight. Today I doubled the ammount of gas in my car with prenium to make it a midgrade... My dad says if its the spark plugs then the misfires will become less appearant and most likely go away as long as I have a richer gas in there. My Air Filter is pratically brand new.... If none of this stuff is the problem, I would think the Fuel filter would be the last thing that I need to replace that would be causing this problem, but thats a big if.

My ZETEC did the same thing a couple of months after I replaced the plugs and wires (Bosch wires and Autolite double plats from - you got it - Autozone). I pulled the plugs to look at them and noticed two of the plugs had carbon tracks burned down the porcelain where they had been arcing inside the plug boot. Scraped the carbon off and put some insulating and waterproofing compound on the plugs. I also put some of the compound in the plug wire boot before putting them back on the plugs. Been running great for a couple of months now. You might wanta look at your plugs.

did your misfires get worse the 2nd time arround, cause mine did. Ill have a look at those wires though. That tour has just been getting the royal treatment lately, preinium gas, gas treatment, fuel injector cleaner.

The second time was like the first, slowly got worse over time. The car would bog down and misfire pulling away from a stop or accelerating on the freeway. If I accelerated very slowly it wasn't quite as bad.

ok i also have a misfire with my zetec. now i was talking to my father about it and i also tried all the thigs you guys did except the wire thing. but he told me that it might be a cloged converter. the car does not get enough air therefor it studders. i am not one hundered % sure but it is a good theory but it might not be true. what do you guys think.

I was very unhappy today--my car misfired a couple of times today and threw a CEL. I stopped by AutoZone and it turned out to be P0302--cylinder 2 misfire. I'm going to check the plug tomorrow--the plugs, wires and coil are all fairly new though! Errg!!

I just got rid of the last code a couple of weeks ago (it had been on for a while) when I spent $90 to replace the DPFE sensor!

it was my cylender 2 that was missing in the first place also. as well as when I needed to replace my Wires. The wierd thing with my Coil, is that when I had to replace it, only one of the ports on the coil shut down, It was kind of odd to, I downshifted to 2nd gear, went down to about 10 MPH, and there was a small hill, I let the clutch out, gave it a little more gas then usual, and it sputtered a little, bucked, then got up the hill, and continued to sputter. Cylender 2 quit fireing, so I was running a "Geo" engine. Im told that when the coil goes, it usualy just quits all together and the engine dies. I like how the Zetec was made, everything is independent to each other.

kennard went through this misfire adventure for a couple of months. His got so bad that the plug insulators were cracking after a few days of driving.

Turns out it was the combination of plugs & wires - even though he had replaced both sets a couple of times.

You've gotta get the Motorcraft plugs & Motorcraft or Autolite Pro-fit wires to make some Zetec engines run properly. I don't know why, that's just the way it is.

Return the Bosch wires & upgrade - while you're there, get a fresh set of plugs. Replace everything at one time and enjoy.

Im confused, the thing ran fine for a month and started to show these signs again, BTW, they arent the 40$ bosche wires, they are the 30$ Double Silicone ones over at Autozone, the website doesnt have a brand name for them. Ill be pissed if I have to replace the wires again though, For one I dont have the money for wires, I literally have 30$ as my life savings right now. That isnt for college