Car Repair Guru's please HELP with '96 Escort problems

[Squisher]

OK, so about 3 months ago I took the '96 Escort in to the dealer because it was running terrible, missing, no acceleration, and was at the end of the extended warranty. Dealer changed spark plugs, plug wires, and cleaned the injectors. Afterwards car was running fine.

Then we parked the car for a couple months because the wife bought a new car and we were keeping it to give to the daughter when she ever gets off her dead @ss and gets her license.
Now the car is back to running pretty bad, rough idle, bawgs under moderate acceleration yet takes off fairly well under light acceleration, and check engine light is on.

I tried changing the fuel filter and for two days the check engine light went out although the car still ran poorly. Then I figured maybe the plugs fouled out when the filter was bad so I changed them again. No luck. But, I did notice the plugs that I pulled out looked awfully moist.

I?m getting ready to take it somewhere to have it scoped, so that they can tell me what?s wrong, but I thought I?d give everyone here one shot at it. So, whaddya think?

 

Then we parked the car for a couple months

Gasoline seperates into it's constituants after two months of sitting.
First thing to do is to fill it with fresh gas.
If this does not solve your problem,PM me and I will go through a thorough diagnostic procedure with you.

 

[Squisher]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that. I put in two fresh tanks of gas in along with some slick50 injector cleaner each time.

 

What year is it ?
If it a '95 or earlier,Go Here,follow the directions to retrieve any trouble codes you have stored in memory.

Once this is done,PM me with the results.

 

[Squisher]

It's a '96.


Editted the body of the thread to say that.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Flaky fuel pump? Injectors can be really sensitive to low pressure, maybe you're 2-3 PSI low on your fuel pressure. It could also be the timing advance function of your distributor, if this stopped working then the car would idle OK, and do all right without a load on the engine, but when the engine ran under load the timing would be retarded too much (more correctly, not advanced) for proper fuel burn, which could be causing the problem with the spark plugs.

ZV

 

You will have to have it hooked up to a O.B.D II diagnostic scanner.
Guessing will only cost you $.

Pay the $75 to have it scanned.

Good Luck

 

[Squisher]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Flaky fuel pump? Injectors can be really sensitive to low pressure, maybe you're 2-3 PSI low on your fuel pressure.....

ZV

I was hoping nobody would say this. I'm not looking forward to dropping the tank.

I guess I'll take it in to a shop to get it scanned. I really don't have a local favorite mechanic that can scan this.

Any national chains better at this than others?

 

[Zenmervolt]

You can check the fuel pump without dropping the tank, all you've got to do is have someone run a pressure check at the injector rail. I hate to say it, but it seems most likely to be the pump since cleaning the injectors and replacing the filter both temporarily fixed things. Have the pressure at the injector rail checked first though, there are other things that can have the same symptoms, such as the timing advance on the distributor.

ZV