Hello everyone
I've spent the last two weeks combing through these forums, and have gotten alot of good advice on a few issues I had with my car. It's a '99 Contour with the 4-banger in it, which I assume is referred to as the 'Zetec'. Its the one with the DOHC and has 96k miles on it. My gas mileage started dropping horribly from around 20-25mpg to 12-18. So I decided to check the plugs to start off with, and they were in sad shape. The peculiar thing was that there was oil pooled up around the #1 plug before I changed it(is this normal??) and there was a little pooled around the #2 plug as well. The information I gathered from the forums suggested the gap should be .54--the decal under the hood says 1.3mm, but this is the same, correct?? I gapped the plugs, installed them and got all the wires back on and started the car. She smoked for quite a while(from the tailpipe), and I have yet to figure out what caused that. After driving around the block twice, that went away.
Now, I still need to change the wires as they are OEM as far as I can tell, and replace the fuel filter, and possibly the coilpack. Now, ever since I changed the plugs, it seems as if the car is sluggish, and losing power. The cat is just fine...already thought of that. So, any ideas as to the cause of that?
One last thing...I plan to switch to synthetic oil at my next oil change, and I couldn't find a definite on this in the forum, but is it NECESSARY to use that 'motor flush' stuff before the oil change?
Anyway, that's my contour. Not many problems, and she still drives like a demon with 96k miles
