Hey guys, new to the forum and searching for some advice. My 1996 850 has 225k miles and has been a great car. Last week it started running rough. You will be headed down the road and it will start bucking and run real rough. It doesnt do it all the time and when it does do it I found that if you accelerate or down shift it seems to come out of it when up increase the RPM's. Then about once a day or so at like a traffic light or something idle will begin dropping and you can not bring it back up by revving. The car then will die and is real hard to get going and take several tries. I did plugs and wires (which were due) and noticed little change. While we were there we found a vacumn line unhooked on the valve behind the motor and fixed it. Once the car is warm it also takes a while cranking for it to start and it starts well cold. Any ideas or suggestions would be great. Gonna do a fuel filter and distributor cap tomorrow as they also should be done. When scanned the codes P0103 and P0133 came both inducating and air issue? I didn't know if that could be from the line we fixed or if it was something else. Thanks for any suggestions and help in advance.

 

What is your exact model? T5, T5R, GLT, or Base?

Could be anything form a vac leak to clogged injector, to a bad maf, to bad gas..

My advise start with a FULL Stage "0", while doing your stage 0 make sure all you vac lines are good, and the plugs are gapped correctly.

Once we know what model you have we can delve into it a little more

 

Its just a base model 850. I replaced the MAF about a year and a half ago so I doubt it went bad but maybe. Looked over lines tonight and didnt find any leaks or bad lines quickly. New plugs were all gapped to .028". This has been going on for about a week and I put about 300 miles on in that times.

 

The fact that it starts better cold than it does hot would tend to indicate it's likely you have a vacuum leak. When cold the computer goes rich and it's easier to start with a leak because of the extra gas that gets injected. Once it's warm and the temperature sensor tells the engine how much gas the engine needs and only sends in that much the air leak makes the mixture too thin to pop off easily. It's just a guess.

 

i am having the same problem in my 96' 850 GLT. but mine only dose it when the engine is warming up like when starting it in the morning and as the motor warms at about half way it starts to run rough...buck...and finally stall this happens regularly, like every day. i have looked in to it and so far all i have got is that it could be the MAF or the distributor. i have read the codes off the computer and hears what i got, P0130 (02 sensor bank 1 sensor 1) P0137 ( 02 sensor circuit low voltage bank 1 sensor 2) P1310 ( multiple miss fire/ TWC damage ( three way catalytic converter)) P0305 ( miss fire cyl. 5) P0304 (miss fire cyl. 4) P0300 (random multiple miss fire).
please help

 

After messing with mine I believe it is MAF related or is the MAF connection. Car ran great with the MAF unhooked but then we hooked it back up and I drove around for more than the amount of time it was taking to start bucking and couldn't get anything. Gonna run and compare both way tomorrow and get some dielectric grease on the plug. Will let you know what I end up finding.

 

"please help" ...... That's easy and I'm going to be a bit rude, fix the problems the computer is seeing and then see if you still have any running or drive-ability problems.
What do you really expect someone to say, give your car the blue pill

The one realistic thing you can do is erase the codes and see what comes back. Whatever comes back is something you need to fix to get the computer to properly control the engines function and allow it to run properly. Once you don't have a check engine light and you still have a problem,,, that's when you really need some help.

That O2 sensor alone can cause your problems with the rich mixture, dies as it warms up complaint.

 

i laughed when i read the blue pill part. thanks for the help

 

Dear Bob, thank you for understanding.