HELP! SERIOUS STUTTER!

[TheresGabe]

So this morning I was driving... In 2nd gear between 20-25mph the Festiva shuttered. Kinda hiccuped. Once I was going faster it was fine. It kept doing it in 2nd. Drove it a while, and it started doing it in first too! The on the way home it was stuttering clear up to when I was doing 75 on the freeway! The only thing I could think of is that I put a bottle of gumout fuel system cleaner in it, and i put it in AFTER filling up my last tank, instead of before.

Any ideas what could be happening?

[georgeb]

You might have too much Gumout for the amount of gas.

[TheresGabe]

I just filled it up with Premium. It held about 7 gallons.

[Ape]

Pull yours plugs and check for hairline cracks in the porcelain. Just one tiny crack and it will cause a stutter.

[georgeb]

How much Gumout?

[David88]

Plugs and wires. Plugs and wires. I had the same issue. It was plugs and wires.

[scitzz]

Not the gumout. David88 might be on to something. When was the last time you did a tuneup? A really easy way to check the wires is wait till dark, be somewhere with little light, and lift the hood with the engine running. Look all along the wires for little blue flashes from wires to ground. If it looks like the fourth of July under there, or even just the occasional flash, do a full tuneup.

[iceracerdude]

I had friends who's (jeep) tps was bad enough, that they just thought their trans was actually going out! Imagine how relieved they were when I replaced that for them.

[scitzz]

I had friends who's (jeep) tps was bad enough, that they just thought their trans was actually going out! Imagine how relieved they were when I replaced that for them.

HA!

I had a recent employer who paid 2 grand for a new transmission on his tow truck, turned out all they replaced was the TPS, and pretended the job took longer than estimated.

I hate transmission shops....

[WmWatt]

Take a clean cloth and wipe off the igniton wires and distributor cap and see if that clears it up before spending time and money on the problem. If you can, remove the spark plugs and clean them too, and if possible crimp the ends of the ignition wires a bit to ensure good contact. While the spark plugs are out you could compare their condition to a spark plug chart on the Internet.

[Bert]

I had infrequent engine stutter and occasional engine 'quits' last fall. Ultimately it turned out to be the electric sensor inside the distributor (EFI engine) that was beginning to fail. Situations like this can drive us (me, for sure) mad because injector cleaner, new fuel pump, plugs/wires/cap/rotor did not correct the problem over the course of a few months and I only ever did find out because the car died outright out on the road one day and after being towed home a replacement dizzie rectified that plus all the previous problems instantly.

[TheresGabe]

Yee-haw... my poor little car is a Bucking Bronco in first gear this morning.

I ran it last night after dark, and no sparks. The plugs are new within the last 6 weeks, as are the wires.

I guess I'm going to do a cap/rotor tonight and see if that fixes the problem... Hmmm... I'm getting seriously frustrated. It won't do it for 10 minutes of stop and go, and then it'll buck. Sometimes it bucks only in 2nd gear, sometimes it's in 1-2-3. Usually the bucking isn't as bad, or it's not there at all, if I'm driving it like a racecar, foot down from take off...

[crazyrog17]

Fuel filter?

[TheresGabe]

Fuel filter?

That is what I'm thinking...

[meg4x]

Sometimes my car stutters too, more often in second gear, and occasionally in higher gears. I noticed it would happen more and more frequently the emptier my gas tank is (it starts at around 1/2 tank). Once I fill up the tank, the stuttering disappears almost completely. I'm thinking it might be a fuel filter issue of some sort.