Ok so First thing is I want to say that this is easily the best fourm I have ever been on. I have posted here with my inquiries and questions and they all have been answered. But yesterday I posted in a Mitsubishi Forum and nothing...no responses no hits...crazy.

So I decided to try and bring it here.



Ok so first off my wife has a 2000 Galant es 4 cylinder.

We were on our way from ny to atlanta last night and everything was going great.

All of a sudden the car starts to sputter bad.

Here are the symptoms:

-The need service now light is on

- when you accelerate it sputter like crazy and has no pick up

- when you start going its fine but if you press down too much on the accelerator it starts to sputter again.

- when idling it buck back and forth

- cant go up a hill unless you have speed because it starts to sputter and the car has no pick up


we thought it could be bad gas but then when the tank ran out we filled it back up and put a fuel injectot/ gas treatment into the system and nothing changed.

Luckily we got down to atlanta but somehome we have to get back up.

Please any help would be amazing.

Thanks

 

theres a number of things i could think it could be off the top of my head its either a spark problem or a fuel problem. check the plug wires and make sure your not arking off a spark anywhere, pull the spark plugs to make sure they are not fouled or faulty. im not at all familier with mitsu engines so im jsut throwing this out and im sure i could help you out more if i was there in person. possibly a fuel injector craping out? maybe the fuel filter is fouled up. sorry i cant be of more assistance but i am just throwing some general ideas out there i hope you solve your issue and happy holidays! let me know if you find anything out!

 

jjcrt2 speaks wisely. Your symptoms sound exactly like what I had going on when one of my coil packs split and the spark arc'd off the harness before ever traveling down the wire. Once I fixed that, everything was golden. I would recommend popping the hood and starting the engine and seeing if you can see a spark arcing anywhere. After that, check the plugs, one or more of them could be fouled and causing mass misfires. In fact, you'd probably be better off just changing them anyway, unless you already did that within the last few weeks or something. Next, examine the wires for cracks or frays.

Good luck

 

yep +1 for a misfire.

 

Agreed. Also change out the fuel filter. One of the classic symptoms of it being clogged are driveability being ok under light load but sputtering when loaded up (either heavy acceleration or going uphill). For a $10 or so part it's worth changing it out too.

 

Def. sounds like a spark plug problem, I had the same thing and replaced them and it fixed it right up.