94 Acclaim 3.0L missing and dying

Feb 22, 2008 6 Replies

My 1994 Acclaim 3.0L has started missing and occasionally dying. It runs just fine for seconds to hours, then all of a sudden it will miss once,



*hard*, and the car will lurch; or we'll be at a stop light and it will die quietly; or accelerating from a stop sign, it will run okay for a second, then start running very badly for 10 seconds and return to good operation. Wife says she notices it most when she slows as if to stop for a light, but the light turns green and she starts to accelerate instead of stopping; bad running for several seconds.

Don't have a code reader; ignition key trick returned a code 14, MAP sensor voltage too low or too high. Could that be a red herring? In my experience MAP sensor problems aren't intermittent, they're either constantly bad, or constantly flaky.



It's just not talking to me. I have no idea where to start.


MAP sensor error message can be caused by vacuum leaks, sensor itself, EGR problems including sticking, leaks, plugged ports, etc.

Unfortunately, the intermittent nature of your problem makes it hard to spot.

Inspect the engine for places where vacuum leaks might be occuring. Check out the EGR and do what you have to do to implicate or eliminate it from the problem.

My sentiments exactly.

EGR in its entirety (three parts IIRC) was replaced with factory parts early 2007. (Not that it's not worth checking anyway, just unlikely.)

I had a Dodge that was missing once, but it turned out I just got drunk and forgot where I left it.

Steve B.

Steve B. wrote in news:cnhur31ou6f3qhv7v46o0v2tt18rnju4n6@

4ax.com:

I know a guy who did /exactly/ that once, many years ago!

He had an '80s Dodge pickup. We had gone bar hopping in my car, leaving everybody else's cars behind. By the time we went back to where we started from, he was so hammered he forgot where his truck was (on a side street somewhere) and ended up having to take a taxi home. Which, in retrospect, was probably a good thing... He eventually found it the next day, he and his wife cruising the streets in the area for an hour before spotting it.

Probably worthwhile, but the fuel pump is less than six months old.

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