My van suddenly developed this rough idle and is shifting poorly into 2nd gear. Also got an check engine light. Brought it to the dealer who did a full tuneup at the tune of $500. Dealer said the light was for #6 cylinder misfiring. Pick up the van the next day and it was still running rough got about 200 feet away from the dealer and the light came back on . Never did fix a thing and it's still in the shop. Anyone have an idea what's going on here? [:@]

 

probably either a bad plug, a bad plug wire, a bad distributor cap, or distributor rotor.....all that should be covered in a tune up tho....especially a $500 one! If your mechanic is going to charge you $500 and not fix the problem......you might want to find a new mechanic! There's also a chance that the #6 fuel injector is bad............everything here is pretty cheap to buy, so hopefully you wont have to put out too much more money!

good luck!

--Dylan

 

Thanks Dylan,
Just got word from the dealer, seems like I have a leaky valve? They put valve conditioner in and are checking to see if that's going to work. If not, it's a new valve, 13hrs of labor that's more than a $1000 bucks plus parts. Is this possible or reasonable? Looks like I didn't need that tune up after all !!

 

It could be possible that you have a plenum failure next to the number 6 cylinder and it's causing a missfire... hope that's not it though...

 

Are we talking new engine here?

 

nope... easy fix if you can work on a motor, just requires the intake manifold to be removed...

http://dodgeram.info/tsb/2000/09-05-00.htm

 

Thanks for the bulletin. Pardon my ignorance here but how does the computer sense that piston #6 is misfiring? What component on the engine signal the computer that something is not working as it should? Can the leaky valve as diagnosed by the dealer cause the check engine light to come on? My first guess here is that is an electrical problem and the valve leak is still not going to fix the rough running engine and the light comming back on.

 

There is a Crank Position sensor that can be used to determine which cylider is having a problem, but how it determines a problem I'm unsure of. There is a torque management system from what I hear, maybe they are monitoring engine torque somehow and determine a problem on a cylinder if the torque drops on any perticular cylinder...?

 

Looks like it's a bad valve after all. Dealership applied air pressure to the bottom of the engine and air flowed out of the intake manifold. Therefore according to the mechanic it's a bad intake valve. They will replace the complete head assy with valves and all for a measly $1400 CDN plus taxes of course. What a deal!! thanks for the feedback

 

cool, glad they found it. Just curious, was there any overheating at all? And another thing to mention... check to make sure the cat's are not plugged. Not sure if your motor has it or not but my 2000 5.9 has 2 cat's right after the exhasut manifolds, one on each side. One of them got plugged and was causing excessive heat in the head and ultimately destroyed the #8 exhaust seat. It would be worth it to check out so you don't damage the new head....