Well, as most of you probably don't know, I recently purchased a 1999 9-5 2.3 auto
60K miles. The CE light kept coming on (reporting random misfire), and each time reset, the car would run great for a time, then degrade. The degredation was in the form of rough idle and stalling (when in gear). Other than that it seemed to run fine. Eventually the CE light would reappear each time.After spending about a week (third visit to dealer), and dismantling the fuel system due a theory that Evap cannister was getting raw fuel in it, which turned out to be incorrect, they say they've finally fixed it. They say that they found one of the cam gears 'one tooth off'. That someone had been inside before (head was milled), and did not align cam correctly. Sounds crazy, but so far ~200 miles and no problems. Now it runs great, but it does seem (just a little) less peppy on the top end. Still very impressive performance, but I was really blown away previously (could just be new car hallucinations though).
Could it be that a previous owner had intentionally modified the cam in some effort to increase HP or something?
Anyway, I love this car.