Hi guys,


I have a 98 Mitsubishi Solara v6 and my mechanic can't find any solution for my problem....
The typical: sometimes does it, sometimes doesn't.

About a few weeks ago driving from Sydney to Canberra when I wanted to park I realized that the engine was very rough, shaking (I didn't recognize it at high speed). Next day started smoothly, after driving just 5 minutes it started shaking again and the 'Check Engine' light turned on. I went to a mechanic who read the code which said the '5th injector does not work'. We took the car to an electrician who tested all the cables and injectors and everything was OK, he couldn't reproduce the error, engine ran ok.

The same problem came back since then twice after driving long distance (with cruise control, does it matter??) engine started to shake whith low speed but no check engine light on this time, I stopped the engine, waited for 10-20 min, still shaking when I started but accelareting to high speed above 80km/h the shaking dissappears (or just I can't feel it???).


Since than the mechanic tested the car for 2 days, everything was OK, couldn't find any problem.

What's your suggestions guys, what should the mechanic test/replace on the car?

Thanks
Greg

Maybe the injectors are getting stuck, are you getting any blue smoke when this happens?

Could be that you need to clean the injectors, or replace but I'll let someone more experienced chime in, come on madmagna, where you at mate?

Ps, welcome to the forums

Are you sure it's the engine and not something in the suspension?

thanks,
I will check for blue smoke or anything, currently it's frosty in Canberra so smoke is common every morning :) but will check if it's blue :)



Maybe the injectors are getting stuck, are you getting any blue smoke when this happens?

Could be that you need to clean the injectors, or replace but I'll let someone more experienced chime in, come on madmagna, where you at mate?

Ps, welcome to the forums

Yes, I think it's the engine as I can see it shaking on idle as well


Are you sure it's the engine and not something in the suspension?

Check your ignition leads - preferably in a very dark environment). You may have a spark shorting to earth or to another ign lead. This will make it run rough.

Thank you guys, I will take the car to the electrician tomorrow and tell him what you guys suggested. I will let you know the result.



Check your ignition leads - preferably in a very dark environment). You may have a spark shorting to earth or to another ign lead. This will make it run rough.

Greg: Thanks mate - I think you have jinxed me. SWMBO complained todau about her car - running rough, smelling of petrol (it runs on gas 99% of the time), no power, PANIC!!! Creaky old bones get out and strip the spark plugs out and check them. All beautifully clean, but the gaps were 1.1 mm+ so I regapped them to 1.0 mm and put them back in. Reassemble the engine, start it up and it still shakes, no power etc. Switch it onto petrol and it is still rough, so I gave it a bootful of revs (4000) and left it for about 30 seconds. Finally, it cleared its throat and without changin gthe throttle, it went to 4500 RPM. Clean running and smooth as normal. I looked out the back and there was a large cloud of blue smoke clearing itself. I think it was a stuck injector. I'll have to use up the tankful of petrol I have and then put some injector cleaner in . Thanks for jinxing me - I hope you car cures itself as easily as mine...

Hi guys,

Just reporting the solution:

After long long testing the car (at the mechanic it always worked, they couldn't reproduce any symptom)

finally an electrician could find the problem: faulty injector driver for cylinder six in ECU and an incorrect injector was fitted to cylinder six (probably previous owner tried to fix it at home...)

What they changed:
ECU
Fuel injectors
Spark plugs

so I'm minus 1500 bucks now, but the car works really fine.

Cheers

Greg