This is a long story but please stay with me, I REALLY need some expertise.
About three months ago my car started running poorly when in gear but at a stop. It also performed poorly when my foot was off the gas at high speed. It threw a p0440 code about a week later for a purge solenoid valve. After replacing it, it ran a little bit better, but began to throw cylinder misfires. I figured the bad sensor fouled out the plugs which I had been meaning to replace anyway. I put ACDelco wires and Bosch premium plugs in it and it no longer threw codes. It still runs poorly and will even die when I am at high speeds and I apply the break unless I drive two footed and keep my foot on the gas a little bit. I have to take out the plugs and clean this black film off of them every few hundred miles or it will misfire in the second cylinder. If it sits for a couple days, it starts smoking at the rear exhaust manifold (near the second cylinder?) and smells of burning raw fuel. It will also smoke out of the tail pipes and smell of raw fuel. I have been told that it may be a bad carbon canister in the rear of the car, or perhaps a vacuum leak. I keep replacing various sensors only to return them because the performance has not changed. The only sensor that is new is the PSV. Again, it is throwing no codes besides cyliner misfires when the plugs get gummed up.
Any ideas on things to check out would be greatly appreciated. At this point my next guess would be to tear apart the injectors and check for leaks but that would be entirely new to me.
On a slightly less important note I took it to a mechanic who charged me $240 and all he did was put new plugs in it, telling me I had gotten the wrong kind which turned out to be untrue. So I'm done with the notion of taking it to a mechanic as that was both the first and the last time I don't do it myself.
About three months ago my car started running poorly when in gear but at a stop. It also performed poorly when my foot was off the gas at high speed. It threw a p0440 code about a week later for a purge solenoid valve. After replacing it, it ran a little bit better, but began to throw cylinder misfires. I figured the bad sensor fouled out the plugs which I had been meaning to replace anyway. I put ACDelco wires and Bosch premium plugs in it and it no longer threw codes. It still runs poorly and will even die when I am at high speeds and I apply the break unless I drive two footed and keep my foot on the gas a little bit. I have to take out the plugs and clean this black film off of them every few hundred miles or it will misfire in the second cylinder. If it sits for a couple days, it starts smoking at the rear exhaust manifold (near the second cylinder?) and smells of burning raw fuel. It will also smoke out of the tail pipes and smell of raw fuel. I have been told that it may be a bad carbon canister in the rear of the car, or perhaps a vacuum leak. I keep replacing various sensors only to return them because the performance has not changed. The only sensor that is new is the PSV. Again, it is throwing no codes besides cyliner misfires when the plugs get gummed up.
Any ideas on things to check out would be greatly appreciated. At this point my next guess would be to tear apart the injectors and check for leaks but that would be entirely new to me.
On a slightly less important note I took it to a mechanic who charged me $240 and all he did was put new plugs in it, telling me I had gotten the wrong kind which turned out to be untrue. So I'm done with the notion of taking it to a mechanic as that was both the first and the last time I don't do it myself.
