When I’m driving through City at 20 to 30 miles an hour it’s fine. However, as soon as I get outside of town and start accelerating it stutters for two or three times. Doesn’t happen after that. Just seems to happen at the initial acceleration.
If you read this forumn regularly you should know to provide far more info about your car than you just did. So details, Spud, details…
It’s a 2008 Mercury sable with automatic transmission… The stutter is kind of jolting.
Google “torque converter shudder”. Do the symptoms seem anything like that?
Is there a check engine light on?
No engine light and No it doesn’t feel like torque shudder… It only happens in the initial acceleration from coming out of town. If I slow on the highway and accelerate it doesn’t happen either.
That sounds like the engine is misfiring for some reason, but only on acceleration. There’s several possible causes. Usually it is either a spark or a fuel problem. I’ve had noticeable pinging on acceleration before on my Corolla, noticed on acceleration or going uphill. That was caused by the spark plug gap having grown too wide. Other than that, about all a diyer can do diagnostic-wise is check for a good visible spark and proper fuel pressure at the fuel rail. Otherwise you pretty much will have to locate a shop that has the proper pro scan tool. They may be able to tell you what’s wrong, then you can replace the part(s) yourself.
If you want to try replacing stuff on a flier
- fuel filter
- engine air filter
- spark plugs
- if equipped with distributor, distributor cap, ignition rotor, and spark plug wires.
Strange thing is, it isn’t throwing a code. But it is starting to get worse. It happens regularly now when I’m on the highway as I start to accelerate
Does it seem to idle as smoothly as it ever did? When idling does the exhaust gas come out of the exhaust pipe smoothly, exhaust burst intervals repeat at a constant rate? If you hold a dollar bill next to the exhaust pipe, so the exhaust gas is blowing it towards a horizontal position, does the bill ever move towards the pipe?
Have you checked for pending diagnostic codes? Have you tried replacing any of the stuff above? You could begin by replacing the spark plugs, if that job is relatively easy/inexpensive, see if that has any effect. With this sort of problem it is usually best to take your best guess & do something, even if it doesn’t help, rather than doing nothing.
Thanks will give it a try tomorrow
Not getting anything at idle, runs smooth…My scanner shows no codes… Don’t see anywhere to see “pending” ones.
Well? Was able to get the front 3 plugs out… Took a breaker bar, a lot of nervous sweat, penetrating fluid, and patience back and forth… There was hardly any electrode left on them. Must be the originals? 200,000 miles. Anyways, no more stuttering. I will get the back 3 sometime soon. Have to take the intake off to get to them. Put anti-sieze on the new ones.
Thanks for your help
2 Likes