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Three weeks ago I had my 95 in the shop because of a misfire. Cap and rotor change on the opti was the fix (we thought). He also changed plugs and plugwires since he had it all apart anyway. The car ran great when i got it back. 1100 miles later and the same problem is back. Is it possible that opti is bad and causing the cap or rotor to go bad? What else can cause this. Please give me ideas before it goes back to the shop. Thanks in advance.
Want to wish everyone a safe and Happy new Year!!!!
Check each plug wire with an ohmeter. They should be about 5000 ohms per foot and wiggle each end to make sure they aren't intermittent. I had new wires and one went open circuit after 2 days of driving. New doesn't guarantee good!
Haven't got any codes yet, hoping to see one. Plugs and plugwires are without a doubt under warranty, and my wrench guarantees his work, so if that's the problem, no problem. How could the o2 sensors be the problem? Its only been about 3 weeks and 1100 miles since I got it back. Would the cap and rotor change "hide" the problem for that long? Once again, thanks for the input. I want to give my mechanic as much info as possible, so thanks for the response.
Haven't got any codes yet, hoping to see one. Plugs and plugwires are without a doubt under warranty, and my wrench guarantees his work, so if that's the problem, no problem. How could the o2 sensors be the problem? Its only been about 3 weeks and 1100 miles since I got it back. Would the cap and rotor change "hide" the problem for that long? Once again, thanks for the input. I want to give my mechanic as much info as possible, so thanks for the response.
Changing the cap and rotor will not cure an optical sensor problem within the opti unit.
Right, but since everybody in the world swears up and down that it's the high voltage side of the opti that fails he probably didn't think to change that.
Just my $.02, take it for what you will....
If you think it's the opti, it's probably not.
If it is the opti, it is hardly ever the high voltage side unless your car has 100k plus on the original opti.
The opti has 2 parts. High voltage and optical sensor.
If you are getting codes 16 and/or 36, then you have an optical problem, and the ONLY fix is a new unit.
If you are getting a problem with wandering idle or a high RPM miss, it's high voltage.
Other causations - if the unit has been exposed to lots of moisture, the internals of the cap and rotor will start to carbon trace at a rapid rate. This is what causes the wandering idle and high RPM miss.
Other things to check
1) The harness lead into the opti. They can become corroded.
Thanks everybody for the input. Now I have a stupid question. Will I get a fault code without the check engine light coming on? Is it possible for the opti to cause the cap or rotor to fail/malfunction?
The opti has 2 parts. High voltage and optical sensor.
If you are getting codes 16 and/or 36, then you have an optical problem, and the ONLY fix is a new unit.
If you are getting a problem with wandering idle or a high RPM miss, it's high voltage.
Other causations - if the unit has been exposed to lots of moisture, the internals of the cap and rotor will start to carbon trace at a rapid rate. This is what causes the wandering idle and high RPM miss.
Other things to check
1) The harness lead into the opti. They can become corroded.
2) The coil and ignition driver.
3) Coil wire.
The cars idles fine and at high rpm theres no problem. At idle when i rev the engine up between 1500 and 3000 RPMs is when it has the misfire. When the engine is cold it doesn't do it, but when the engine is warm it starts misfiring. When I'm driving at a normal speed and I start to accelerate to go 10-15 mph faster is when it occurs, light acceleration not enough to make the transmission downshift. The car has 117,000 mile on it and if I had to guess, I would say that this is the original opti. Thanks again for all the help.