Hey everyone

I was wondering if there is anyone who would be able to diagnose a problem that my 97 dodge stratus has. These are the main syptoms - when accelerating (mainly when it's given more abrupt gas) is majorly hesitates to the point where you have to let of the pedal and reapply the gas before it stops sputtering. Occassionally it doesnt get "stuck" on the hesitation thing but it just jerks a little. It's like your trying to get across an intersection and its sitting there sputtering, jerking, and hesitating. But it also does it sometimes when your at a stedy accelation except its not a constant hesitation, its just like a bump....bump...bump Ihave no clue what it is. Also when your going up a hill and the car is in over drive and it tries to get out of over drive, it keeps doing that bumping/jerking thing til it finally shifts into a regualr gear. I think there is a major lack of power in the car overall as a result of it. Here's the deal tho - we've pretty much dismissed any gas related problems - we replaced the throttle position sensor, the gas filter is good, we even had the whole fuel system cleaned by a mechanic. no change... We've considered the transmission aspect of it but im convinced that something else is causing the shifting problems (overdrive into main gears)....maybe not i dunno....We had it hooked up on the computer thing and everything tested fine - even the spark plugs tested fine (cause we thot it could be a emissions problem) but we replaced the plug wires anyway just to make sure. No change.... We were thinking about changing the coil pack but then we thot that it may have a clogged catalytic converter or muffler or maybe just a bad exhaust leak.

So my question is - has anyone had these problems before that knows what could fix it or does the clogged catalytic converter/muffler idea hold any water? I think i may have the whole exhaust system replaced anyway but....Any ideas or suggestions would be great. THanks!

Angel

 

I would be taking your car to a transmission shop ASAP. I've killed a few transmissions in my time and I can tell you from personal experience that it sounds like your tranny is going out. I bet if you drop the pan on your transmission, you might even find some metal fragments in it as well. Personally, I had a car that when I got to about 65 mph, it would shake and the engine would literally sputter. If I let off the gas it would stop and then when I gave it gas again it would be fine as well. About a week later I blew the transmission. While you may think something else is the problem, if its kicking out of gear or sputtering anything like that, it's almost definitely your transmission.

 

Well I wondered if I added some info if that would change your mind. It does sound very much like a transmission related problem, however, overall, it doesn't seem like it struggles in the gearing, it just seems to have overall trouble with power. The transmission works properly as a whole - i see more problems when i need to pick up speed quickly or just overall quick acceleration. I forgot to point out that if your sitting in park and you rev the engine (usually when you give it a quicker punch) it does that sputtering as you first rev it. It's like its "missing". It's a quick sputter and then its revs like normal. Also It runs alot worse when the air is on. One time when it was idling, it was just sitting there jerking and spontaneously bumping (which it does normally, but it was increasingly worse). It's not a BANG...its just "bumping". Also one time i started it up after runing the air and it just sat there as if it was between a start and a stall, just stedily bumping - it felt somewhat like a stall but yet it never prceeded to shut off or choke. It just felt like it would be having trouble "breathing". It has had a bad "rotten egg" smell in the past, thats why i had thot the cataylic converter was bad. It also sounded like there could be a slight exhaust leak (would that cause any of these problems?). Also, could the resonators clog up (it has one in the center of the exhaust system). Just trying to narrow this down. The car is in good shape - i would fix the transmission if need be, but i dont want to jump into that right away.

 

Well first thing i would do, is take down to a transmission shop. Have the guys run it thru its paces and see if they can tell anything. Usually they test drive and hook it up to a machine. While this may not diagnose the problem, it may help to further eliminate things. Also, i would have your emissions checked, and get your car "vacuumed" out. If that helps, then you can help further along the diagnosis. Otherwise, you may wind up spending lots of money regardless.

 

I have a 2000 Stratus with a 2.4 that acts kinda like this. It had the sputtering and stuff like that until I changed the spark plug wires. It also has a tranny problem. Sometimes it doesn't want to shift. The OBD II teter said it was the transmission shift silonoid. Then we were up in the mountains it ran fine. We were almost home and it "coughed" real hard a couple times. I got off the freeway and it died. It wont start at all. It wants to but it down. We tried everything. Checked all the fuel systems, they're fine. We changed the cam sensor and that didn't help. My dad who is a mechanic has looked at about everything he can think of. We finally found out that the number 2 and 3 cylinders are not firing. I checked the coil pack and it's fine. I even bought a new one and it did the same thing. We're afraid maybe the PCM has went out. Any help would be greatly appreciated. My wife is dying without her car.

 

o2 sensor maby

 

Just wondering if you've discovered the fix to your engine bump problem? I have '96 Strat 2.0L (5 spd) that exhibits similar behaviors. For me, the engine bump is most noticeable while maintaining speed at/near 2000 RPM. It only happens <5% of the time, and usually persists for a short period of time before smoothing out. Also, in most cases when I observe the engine bumping, I can accelerate out of it - most noticeable at constant speed.

I've had a few cases where the engine started up REAL ROUGH, and ran like total crap for 5 minutes, then exhibited the bumping action (above) before smoothing out and running fine. It's never logged a code when running like this, and no check engine light illumination ...and the bulb works!

I've replaced wires/plugs. Once after a rough start, I was able to verify a strong spark on all 4 by yanking the wires (1 at a time) and observing good spark - so I no longer suspect the coil pack.

Anyhow, I'm interested if you solved your problem and if it bears resemblence to the problems I'm seeing intermittently. Have you been able to isolate the problem between the engine and tranny? Mine's a manual shift, so that makes it a bit easier to point to the engine (I think)!

Thanks,
-Scott

 

My 97 has had the same problem since about 80,000 miles. It starts as an intermittentmiss under load around 1700 rpm's. After I change the plugs it's fine for another 6 months or so. I've changed the plugs twice in 10,000 miles. Now at 91,000 it's doing it again and today also at highway speed under load. There are no codes, it doesn't use oil between changes. I've had it to the dealer, they only change the plugs, air filter etc. I'm going to try a set of autolites to see if that helps.

 

Try taking a fuel sample 1st before going to a trans shop. You could have water, diesel fuel or surgar in the fuel tank.Also need to know if you have the 2.4 or 2.5 engine?????