Just for clarity, mine is a late mkII despite the year, and it's petrol. :o)
Anyway. For a while now it's been juddering and running roughly, especially at low revs when cold. It feels like it's misfiring on one or more cylinders and at worst it's impossible to accelerate uphill in anything higher than 3rd gear due to stuttering and juddering, and it often can't easily accelerate to or beyond 70 on the motorway unless I drop a gear and get the revs up. It tends to clear up when I get to around 3500-4000 rpm.
I tried changing the plugs first and it did nothing. I didn't really expect much as the plugs weren't that old, but I had found that the leftmost plug (as you look at the car from in front) was quite dirty and carbon'd up. I also tried using redex for a couple of weeks but that similarly did nothing to help.
I don't think it's a compression issue as once it's fully warmed up it improves a lot (though it's still not perfect) and will accelerate hard away from lights etc as it always did. I think (though this may be my imagination to some extent) that it also runs smoother when there's less load on the battery i.e. I kill the air con and heated screen etc. I really suspect it's something electrical. I've bought HT leads but not yet fitted them due to only ever remembering mid journey. When it's really stuttering, it interferes with the radio, again leading me to believe it's an electrical fault or a short somewhere.
Someone suggested it may be the ignition coil pack. I can get a new one of these for about £50 but I don't want to spend the money unless it's likely to help, plus I don't know how difficult the job is. Is it easy for a fairly unskilled but reasonably confident DIYer to test/replace the coil pack or should I be calling in an autoelectrician at this point to diagnose further? Or does this sound like something anyone's come across before on the 1.8 zetec engine?
Thanks in advance. I love this car, but I'm really getting sick of this behaviour...
-- Kev
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I think I would be inclined to fit the ht leads that are sitting in the boot before replacing anything more expensive.These Zetec engines rarely suffer more than ht leads or coil pack problems.hth
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I think I would be inclined to fit the ht leads that are sitting in the boot before replacing anything more expensive.
Knowing someone would say just that I fitted the new leads last night after I got home. The engine was still warm but had sat for about 90 mins. Put on the leads and went to take it round the block. The difference was amazing (but keep reading...) and it ran like a dream round roads it normally judders unhappily along. I extended the drive round the block to a 5 mile joyride, parked up, and left it for the night, wondering whether it was the leads or the warmth that made the difference.
This morning it seems it was the warmth. If anything, it was slightly worse than normal this morning until I'd covered about 15 miles of my commute.
Guess I'll go for the coil pack. :o)
-- Kev
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Update. While rooting through the internet I found one forum post suggesting that the MAF sensor can cause the same symptoms, so I unplugged that and took the car round the block, and nothing changed, so I went ahead and invested in a coil pack. One new part from Ford later (fitted in about ten minutes this afternoon) it seems better, but it was very warm at the time so tomorrow morning will be the acid test. If it works, it's such a simple fix for such a long running issue that I'll be kicking myself for not trying it sooner, but I spose it's a significant outlay to try on the vague advice of someone unqualified but pretty good with cars who thinks it might be that (as it was until I started properly researching last week).
Anyway fingers crossed. It's a different part to the one that was on, and needed longer bolts (which the supplier helpfully advised me of beforehand so I got them along with it) but the lead order is the same for my model of car so no worries there. It's marked with three different orders but again, elsewhere on the net a story of changing one and finding it numbered differently but working when connected as per the old one, gave me confidence as to which way to connect it. Bit of a risk to take perhaps, but in their case the shortest lead would only fit according to the original layout, and that was the same for me.
Cheers for the earlier comments.
-- Kev
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Yep, all sorted. Coil pack fixed it. It's not juddered once since I fitted the new one, and fifth gear has become a realistic option below 70mph again. Now just gotta wait and see if my fuel ec***my improves from its current dire level of about 33mpg.
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