Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Running rough, losing power...spark plugs and wires?!

This turned out to be the spark plugs and wires. I took it to the dealer and they said this was due to the wires. Is it typical to replace them at such low mileage (40,000), and not much wear and tear? I thought that they should be good for 100,000 miles, according to Ford's claim on tune ups. This turned out to be expensive too...$550! I'm going to look into this to see if they ripped me off!


I have a 95 Contour with the Duratech V6, manual transmission. Last week the car started to "sputter" and run rough. The check engine light comes on occasionally when driving. It loses power when accelerating too. There is a different smell coming from the exhaust. My friend thinks that it might be the catalytic converter. Any help/info would be appreciated!

I have the same year you have and had similar symtoms. It was the coil pack. They use this instead of a distributer.If it is this don't let it go to long or it will mess up the cat.

Is the smell similar to rotten eggs or sulfur? If so, your cat is going (gone) south.

I had the same problem 2 months ago, 95 Mystique LS, V6, 5 speed, 97000 miles.
Check engine light (for O2 sensor), rough idle and rough acceleration.
Diagnosis: Bad coil pack. No spark to one wire.
New coil pack, one O2 sensor, and had new plugs and wires installed at same time, since 100K was approaching.
Purrs again, no CELs since. I had it taken care of two days after symptoms came up. Don't wait too long.

This turned out to be the spark plugs and wires. I took it to the dealer and they said this was due to the wires. Is it typical to replace them at such low mileage (40,000), and not much wear and tear? I thought that they should be good for 100,000 miles, according to Ford's claim on tune ups. This turned out to be expensive too...$550! I'm going to look into this to see if they ripped me off!


I have a 95 Contour with the Duratech V6, manual transmission. Last week the car started to "sputter" and run rough. The check engine light comes on occasionally when driving. It loses power when accelerating too. There is a different smell coming from the exhaust. My friend thinks that it might be the catalytic converter. Any help/info would be appreciated![/QB][/QUOTE]

My '98 Duratec started misfiring at 35,000 miles and the dealer said I needed plugs and wires (which were installed and the car ran fine.)

My '97 Zetec has 68,000 miles and is running fine with the original plugs and wires.

When I pointed out this discrepancy to the dealer he said it's perfectly normal to have to replace plugs/wires at 35,000 and it's also perfectly normal to have the original plugs and wires last 100,000 miles.


Oh. Now I understand.

With 4,000 miles on my Tour, I had two plugs AND wires go bad.
They were both replaced.

Go Figure...

I had the same problem with my 97 Contour Duratec 2.5L around 65,000 miles. A new coil pack fixed everything.

Hi.
My mom's '95 V6-auto Mistique had the coil/3 wires problem at 56K. She doesn't drive much. I was explained by a non-Ford mechanic, that it is because the car is not taken out to a highway for a drive and the engine doesn't breathe deep enough to spit out the carbon build up from the little city driving. I "bought" this explantion since my manual for my BMW is actually telling me to take the car at least once a month out on a highway to let the engine breathe. Like walking a dog... I thought it was peculiar to German cars with their Autobahn mentality but obviously our cars want to have a lot of fresh air as well.

I would appreciate if someone would correct me if I am wrong, or maybe would have an opinion on my statement.

And the other thing: if it is a problem on a number of vehicles, would not this be a subject to a recall??

I had the same problem with my wife's 95 LX V6 ATX. Runs really rough, loss of power, bad gas mileage (only 215 miles to a tank!). Pulled off the Throttle Body and hte EGR ports where completely clogged with carbon deposits! I couldn't beleive it. That crap was layered on EVERYWHERE. Took me 3 hours and 3 cans of carb cleaner to get it clean again (plus a toothbrush, heh) Of course, I took the whole upper intake manifold off, cleaned and polished and replaced the gaskets. Don't know for sure if that fixed it though because I broke one of the vacuum lines (AAARRRGGHH!!!) But I'll find out tonight and let you know.