What would cause my car to chug sporadically when going uphill. Does not always happens, sometimes happens once, sometimes chugs 3 times etc.

It feels exactly like when you hit the speed limiter going 109 but I'm only doing between 35 and 60 on this back road I take every day.

So random it is annoying, but ONLY seems to happen when going uphill when it does happen. Car has 57k on it and Im just changed the fuel filter 2 years ago. Time to do it again?

Any ideas?

 

Any codes?

I had #1 spark plug die and it would feel like that when under load (i.e. hill). But I also set a misfire code (P0300), so you couldn't really miss it.

 

Now why didn't I think of that?

I guess I should go get it scanned at Autozone. The SES light doesn't come on at all - do things still get registered? I hope it's not a plug, I just had them changed out 4-5 months ago during a tune-up.

Thanks for reminding me about scanning - I'll definitely get that done and see what that says. Otherwise I'll have to wait for it to get a bit worse and see if it throws a code then.

 

if yours is a 94, a misfire wont show an SES light. OBDI does not detect random misfires, only OBDII does. so pretty much youre gonna have to work it out

 

Too late, went to A-zone and they couldn't scan anything wrong with it. I took the opportunity to buy more goodies so its not all bad.

I just hope this isn't the first sign of an opti going bad. I've already had all the other big issues - water pump, then gasket leaking. Opti is the only big gotcha left (knock on wood).

Once I move closer to work, I'll find a good garage that can sort me out. Only has to last one more week.