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Misfires after having new spark plugs & cat put in.. *yay* (+ hard starts)



Hahaha. I originally wanted to do them myself but after getting mauled yesterday (my arms are all scratched up and bruised and I even have a swollen spot below my wrist on the back of my arm) I've been having second thoughts lol. Also the fact that removing the wires from the back might be easy but the fact that it's impossible to actually see the plugs - and even worse getting them back in afterwards.
I'm not sure why I never tried laying across the engine to reach but I did try sitting on both strut towers and reaching in, removing the coolant bottle and reaching from under the alternator bracket etc. - My other worry there was some wiring harnesses that were kind of in the way that I couldn't figure out how to unplug so as to not damage them by unintentionally pulling them.

Oh, quick question - I've noticed for a while now that SOMETIMES when turning the engine on you can feel it jump a bit more than normal, but only sometimes. Also now that it's got most of its life back, on the highway when the boost would kick in I could also feel as though the engine was going to launch out of the engine bay and leave me in the dust. + my boyfriend noted when I once was getting the car off the ramps that when I put it in reverse there was also more movement than seemed normal. Would anyone say probably just bad motor/trans mounts or no?
 
pop the hood watch the engine as you shift from P to D then to R, if its bouncing back and fourth more then a inch you need new lower engine and trans mounts.

easy enough to change in the driveway.
 
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So we got the old plugs now, and confirmed that one of the older plugs were never changed by fishy mechanic - the same one that gave us a lot of trouble for getting the MSD wire off. Haven't gone on the highway yet but feels like he's back to normal to me :D
 


im willing to bet they blew off changing #2, the one closest to the alt. that one can be a pita, but a paid mechanic should have done the full job, theres no not changing one plug cause its hard in a real mechanics world.

when i bought my car, did a tune up on it asap, found two of the rears were different, so someone did the same to mine as yours, quitters.....
 
that would piss me off to no end. I didn't read the whole conversation, but I would be willing to bet that old of a plug would cause problems.
 
Yup, I told my sister about it and she was like, "maybe he couldn't get it out" and I know they aren't easy as pie like some 4 cylinder but boohoo for $80 you should have found a way to do it not quit on it and tell us nothings wrong with the plugs/it's just the cat.
 
A bad plug change can easily take an hour. $80 would be a nice price if they had done the job. I'm also betting they knew you didn't want to spend anything extra and couldn't get the wire off.

Glad it's running better and thank you for pulling the bosch plugs out. The engine will like you a lot more w/o those in there.
 
Haha, I bet it would've taken us more than that if we had done it. The mechanic down the road behind our house did them all in about a half hour, and only because the office had a phone call for him from a customer asking if they could find a part cheaper than what they were quoted.
Now the misfire is 100% gone and I went to take my cousin to college and it looks like we are losing power steering fluid somewhere...hahaha. I'm pretty sure a hose was replaced last winter because during an overnight snowstorm he lost all the fluid and we could hardly get him out of the driveway, they had him towed and turned out it was the hose. But a few weeks ago I noticed it was starting to make noise, not too bad, and I added more fluid; this morning though it was really obnoxious (though I didn't feel a change in how hard it was to steer) so now I'm adding more and wondering where this is coming from -_-
 


I use transmission fluid when I add fluid to the power steering. I don't know if that will help your leak, but it might.
 
Just over filled the power steering fluid like an idiot... and that actually helps? Hmm.. I do have a spare quart of trans fluid....
 
If a mechanic is unable to change one spark plug, he should have advised the customer. And then look for a new career. LOL
 
tranny fluid and power steering fluid are both hydraulic type fluid, so just about the same thing really, not that id use p/s fluid in my tranny lol

you'll need to pull the pass side front tire, then you can get a good look at the bottom of the p/s pump, theres two hoses, one is a return, its just a rubber hose thats clamped on, it can leak at the end, snip off the break in the old leaking end and re clamp it on. thats the easy scenario.

other are leaking from the hard line, or the rack boots.
 


Well I hope it's not the rack...just got that put in around February I think (in vain, thinking this is why we had the service variable effort steering code, thanks to stealership).
What's worse is its after we had that work done I found the service records the PO gave us and found they already had the rack & pinion replaced a year before too. X.x
Well, at least we got ONE more thing off our list of work to be done...but the list doesn't appear short enough yet. Still have to somehow find a new airbag/horn clockspring that doesn't cost $200+ hopefully...and I've been wanting to flush the cooling system to switch him off dex-cool.. then we still have the supercharger oil change and coupler which I have both sitting here, as well as the aluminum coolant elbows and water pump b/c this coolant leak is annoying, and I have a new Belt that's been sitting in the trunk for several months lol. Ah, we also need to get the ABS module repaired and still have a new fuel filter sitting in the trunk as well. :th_laugh-lol3:

But at least we have new plugs and wires and [dad's] coils and a new cat with no moar check engine :D!!
 
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