My wife has a 2000 dodge stratus. Yesterday it broke down on her. The spark plug came out somehow and was hanging there in the spark plug wire. She put the spark plug back in and tightened it up.

The car would not run right and sounded like it was missing. It would not go faster than 30 mph. Any ideas on what is wrong and how to fix it.

Thanks

 

Well there's one you don't see every day. It ain't a 2.7 is it? Pull the plug and see if it's mashed on the end. Run a compression test on all cylinders.
See if it's missing on two cylinders. May be a coil pack. The mystery is how it blew the plug out in the first place. Unless it was never tightened when the plugs were changed. Threads in the head OK?

 

exploding plugs? thats really wierd.

 

My guess on the plug is that it was never tightened enough. I had an old push mower that I had tuned up, I forgot to tighten the plug with a wrench. I get about half way through cutting my grass, all of a sudden there is a loud bang, and the plug shoots right out of the motor. As far as not running once tightened, its hard to say. I would take the advise of looking into the ignition. may want to see if the plug wire is ok. When it flew out it may have pulled the wire away from the metal clip, and now may not be connected properly inside its boot, therefore not giving spark to that plug.