Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives

  As reported last October, in this thread, there seems to be a problem with my OBDâ??II connector.  Not a big problem as long as everything else is more or less working.

  Well now, I have a new problem, which would probably be very easy to diagnose if my OBDâ??II connector was working, but it looks like I will need some guidance on diagnosing and fixing it using more stoneâ??age methods.

  It's a 1996 Mercury Mystique, with the Zetec engine, and an automatic transmission.  It ran just fine all the way from Lompoc to Sacramento, and for about the first week we've been up here.  Now, it has begun to exhibit some odd symptoms.  When one tries to accellerate briskly from a stop, it hesitates a bit.  It never used to do this.  And occasionally, while driving at freeway speeds, it will seem to surge and buck slightly.  The CEL is on.  I reset the PCM last night, and the CEL came on again within a few miles.

  And just to make things worse, I am in the worst financial shape right now I have been in all my adult life.  My wife and I are both unemployed, heavily in debt, and just about broke.  We just moved 300+ miles from Lompoc to Sacramento, where we are trying to put our lives back together.  We cannot afford to even think of paying a mechanic to look into this.  If any expensive parts need to be replaced, we're screwed.  I'm hoping there is some simple, inexpensive thing that might cause this behavior, that someone can suggest I look into and fix.

  Any ideas?

the link you posted doesnt work...
i would say go and get the codes for the cel, but you said your connector isnt working? (sorry im asking, your link explaining the problem doesnt work- maybe copy/paste?)

Try this link.

  OBDâ??II is still down, but the newer problem turned out to be a bad spark plug wire.  A set of new wires, and my car is now running as well as it ever had.  New bit of light and knowledge, from one of my new friends here in Sacramento:  Look for white spots inside the spark plug wire.  Those are a sure sign of arcing.

  And something very odd.  While I was still stumped by this problem, I did find that using high-octane gasoline seemed to help considerably.  But if the problem was a weak spark, then it now seems obvious that high-octane gasoline ought to have aggravated the problem, since high-octane gasoline is more difficult to ignite.  The problem also became more severe with higher temperatures (both engine temperature and outside air temperature); again, I would expect that higher temperature would make the fuel easier to ignite, and therefore reduce the problem.  No matter; that problem is solved.  I'm just a bit mystified by these apparent contradictions.

  So, anyone got any ideas about this set of problems?