Well, the car has been fine up until now. I drove through a pretty bad rain storm here in phoenix about 2 days ago, and its been hesitating ever since. I got in the next day, and it was fine until it gets to 2-3.5K on the tach ONLY IN 3RD and 4TH. I have the sucky *** auto tranny. The car has 82,XXX miles on it. I checked the dist cap and rotor, they look fine with no moisture. I pulled #1 and #2 spark plugs. a little on the worn side but not bad. no water in the spark plug galleys either. I read that people wer ehaving bad knock sensors cause this, but mine only does it in 3rd and 4th gear. also, after the car warms up, it goes away, or its so slight I dont notice it. Any insight? thanks!

Neil

 

Do you have access to an obd2 scanner?

 

I suppose I could take it to autozone, but there's no CEL's...

neil

 

If you could plug it in and drive around ( i dont think autozone would let you do this) and look and everything like throttle position, tps voltage, map sensor, o2 voltage, fuel pressure , vaccum ect and have a friend look at the scanner while the car does its hesitating. Just an idea but again i dont think any auto parts store will let you leave with it they'll just check cels. Good luck.

 

ah, I see what you mean. I'll ask my buddy and see if he has one. In the meantime, any of this sound familiar to anyone? its been pretty humid recently but I dont wanna have to worry about this thing acting up everytime it gets hot outside, because I live in phoenix

 

Also, im trying to think what would cause it to hesitate like that. If I hook the scanner up, and say, it shows lean or rich through there, what could cause that problem? I know it has to be something. I ran through a pretty large puddle that I didnt see also. The motor didnt die or anything and it drove fine the rest of the way home. I dunno whats going on..

 

Looking through the FSM, Im gonna check the IAC tomorrow, by capping off the vac line. if that doesnt fix it, ill move onto something else. ill keep the board updated...

 

ok, its not the intake air control valve. the hesitation almost clicks off at around 3200 rpm or so...very strange, and it makes me wish someone would steal it so i can buy something else

 

Well, I hope the mods dont lock this. Im not sure if its ok to keep posting things, but im trying to establish a thread on the problem and what works/ doesnt work. So, I did some checking on it some more. I checked the stall speed. It came back low, at just about 1900 rpm. The FSM says anything less than 2300-2600 is bad. It lists the probable cause as A.) Engine output low, or B.) Torque Converter one way clutch is slipping. I doubt its the engine output, it only has like 82K miles. I dont think the clutch slipping has anything to do with the hesitation, as it only does it in 3rd and 4th, and it drives ok any other time. The saga continues. More to follow.

Neil