Well, here's my situation:

Drove the car up to Milwaukee for the weekend (about an hour & a half drive) after just getting the oil changed. Prior to that (about 2 ago), the car had sat for over a year, so I had also very recently replaced the battery/alternator to get the car up and running again.

Prior to the oil change on Friday, everything seemed fine.

Fast forward to getting to our destination, and I park the car and put it in park. I notice at idle, it's getting somewhat stutterish, every 5-10 seconds it'll seem to choke slightly. I can feel it, but try to chalk it up to nothing.

Unfortunately, the problem progressively gets worse as the weekend goes on, until we leave this morning and now it's getting very bad. Merging onto the highway, the car starts to choke like it's losing power slightly, but as I accelerate it works itself through.

It continues to stutter randomly at around 2500-3000 RPM the entire trip home, but we keep going. As we hit traffic and slow down to the 30-40 MPH range, I can feel it getting bad.

To cut the story short, at idle it's very bad now, and if I try to rev the engine, it's definetly low on power and it feels like it's choking. I can still rev and get past the low RPM problems, but they're still evident while driving at high or low speeds.

I'm really hoping it's nothing major...as I just put a decent chunk of money to get it up and running again. Spark plugs, maybe?

I appreciate any answers you can give me, even educated guesses, as I'm semi-clueless at this point in fear of it being something very expensive. Oh well...it is what it is...just hoping I'm paranoid for no real reason.

Thanks!

CLIFF NOTES: Car stutters rough at idle & at higher RPM (2500-3000) ...chokes out randomly, but stays running. Initial RPMs are very rough now, engine shakes slightly but once every few minutes (for a second or two) it'll look like it's running normal again (engine stops vibrating that bad).

 

UPDATE: It was spark plugs misfiring.

Replaced sparks & wires, car runs as it should now.

 

My car is doing something similar - it idles low and engine shakes a bit. It's just fine in the upper end but feels like its low on power.

I'll check the ignition - thanks