Hi all my brothers TS V6 is loosing power and missing under load, he tows a trailer and he said its fine cruising along but going up hills it starts to miss and loose some power, the plugs are pretty new, I'm thinking a blocked fuel filter? I bought the car 5 years ago and the fuel filter has never been changed and its done 50,000 k's in that time, anyone have any other ideas what might be causing this? I plan to change the filter this weekend

cheers

Spark plugs (what brand, part number?), check distributor cap and leads, ignition timing. Check ignition coil connections are tight and clean.

Lots of things that can be the cause of losing power.
Check the easy things first.
Even a clogged air filter might do it. Vee

Ok well as well as fuel filter, maybe a blocked fuel filter has caused blocked injectors, a starvation of fuel (obviously you use alot more up hill and towing) will cause a loss of power.

Depending on the age of parts and how well maintained it is, spark plugs, could also be burning oil - this can cause a loss of power.

Could be dirty air filter causing bad air flow, could be spark plug leads, that's just off the top of my head and there's probably a lot of other things, 90% is a cheap fix you can do yourself if you have basic know-how

Replace the fuel filter and check the resistance of the HT leads.

Thanks to everyone for your replies, I replaced the fuel filter yesterday and when I took it out of the car a lot of muck came out where the fuel line goes so it may have been the cause of the problems, will find out tomorrow when we hook up the trailer. The motor is in very good nick and doesn't blow any smoke even after a long idle so i don't think burning oil is the cause of the loss of power, air filter is good so if its still playing up, maybe the HT leads, cheers

Funny thing, I recently got my car back from my daughter, she had been running the cheapest option in fuel (E10)

When I had the car I always ran it on 95 premium or 98 ultra, NEVER E10............

When I got the car back it would barely idle (or run) but with the assistance of several people who replied to my post on here, I was able to rectify almost all of these running problems (Thanks MadMax) and ran through a long list of things to do, check, clean, replace, etc etc.

Servicing your vehicle is NOT just about fixing things that are broken. It is about preventing things from breaking down.

Ok, so these photos are a prime example of the lack of even basic servicing.

Aftermarket fuel filter cost was $16.50 and took me approximately 45 minutes, including a few other things that i was doing at the same time.

Stripping and cleaning the fuel injectors took 2 hours including the ultrasonic cleaning, and the new seals and strainer baskets were the princely sum of $26.50 from my local autobarn.

The fuel filter on this car had been changed by me approximately 6 years ago and my daughter got the car from me roughly a year later, and as i have said, she ran it on the cheapest option (being E10).

Ethanol (same as methylated spirit) is a cleaning agent, so it has released all the dirt from the fuel system, and lodged it into the fuel filter.
I don't know if the fuel filters for vehicles which run on ethanol blended fuel are different, but I can tell you that the paper element in this filter had started to rot.

Here are the photos of the contents of that 6 year old fuel filter, The jar shows the direct contents including fuel that I was able to shake out of the filter after removing it, the white container is the contents of the paper element after I split the filter and washed it through.

The paper element had broken down, passing this muck into the injectors and blocking the strainer baskets that are in the top of each injector :( Any wonder it wouldn't blood run!!!

THe thing that really surprised me was that it ran fine at high revs????

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o68/GS750/Cars/MAGNA/PA131567_zps3147e2e5.jpg

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o68/GS750/Cars/MAGNA/PA131569_zpsb56d3616.jpg

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o68/GS750/Cars/MAGNA/PA131568_zpsebbf60f2.jpg

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o68/GS750/Cars/MAGNA/PA141573_zps99a92424.jpg

Nice post mortem on that fuel filter!

I've run E10 in Magnas for years, with no problems. Food for thought though.
TS wagon was sold at 240,000 km with original filter. TJ at 140,000 and TL at 155,000 km still on original filters. Maybe time for a change? lol
How often should they be changed anyway?

The service interval is usually about 40,000km.

The fuel from the pic above is not too bad.
When the fuel comes out black and there's a handful of sediment in your hand is fairly normal
for high mileage.

Nice post mortem on that fuel filter!

I've run E10 in Magnas for years, with no problems. Food for thought though.
TS wagon was sold at 240,000 km with original filter. TJ at 140,000 and TL at 155,000 km still on original filters. Maybe time for a change? lol
How often should they be changed anyway?

The manual says for MPI the interval is 100,000km

I dont know what the go is but everyone I have talked to have said that the E10 is fine on new cars that are designed to run on it but not some older cars??? That said though, ethanol is the same as what we used to put in our OLD cars (HQ's and XC's) when I lived down in the snow, we put 4 litres of metho in with a full tank of fuel once a year to dry out any moisture.


The service interval is usually about 40,000km.

The fuel from the pic above is not too bad.
When the fuel comes out black and there's a handful of sediment in your hand is fairly normal
for high mileage.

bahahahaha the strainer baskets actually had what looked like a cotton wool tip in them, it was the paper element which had gone rotten.

I spoke to my local mitsubishi parts and service and they said that they didn't have the filter in stock and if I wanted on it would be 2-3 days. They said that the Ryco or Wesfil filters are fine and that they are equal to the Mitsu specs.

The specs on the Wesfil I just used says that they filter a minimum of 8 microns and maximum of 15 microns.