Last week my 02 Neon started to sputter a little here and there while in park. a couple days later it started sputtering on acceleration making it difficult to enter traffic at times. I put seafoam in the tank when I first bought it two weeks ago. The valve cover gasket and spark plugs where replaced the day I bought the car due to a sputter when I test drove the car. After the replacements it drove fine for about a week. Seems to get worse each day. Ive done a search but didnt find much success to solving the problem. Where is the best place to start. Funds are a little tight so I'd like to start searching for the problem on the simple side first...

 

Did you change the wires too?

 

I agree with Darth. Also wouldn't hurt to get your coil checked.

 

No, The wires look new...

 

They may look new on the outside but they might be quite a few years old and not working like they're supposed to. Call your local parts store and see if you can return plug wires if you try them on and they don't fix the issue.

 

Ok. I'll do that tonight and let you know if it helps

 

Bought the new plug wires. I put them in and the car seems to be running fine now. I'm not getting my hopes up yet as I disconnected the battery and I've known that to reset something to where the car runs fine for a while. My buddy had a PT cruiser that ran better for a week or so after disconnecting the battery. I'll keep you posted

 

Hopefully the wires work out for you. Did you have them check the coil too?

 

I didn't. Is there a way to check it or just have to replace? They also said it could be the MAS??

 

Autozone or Advance should be able to check it for free. MAS as in mass air flow sensor? If that's what they said then you can get a can of MAF cleaner and clean it that way. DO NOT use carb/throttle body cleaner or anything oily