ok, the check engine light comes on from time to time.
the shop scanned the car and came up with a cylinder 2 random misfire as the reason for the code.
they found no problems with spark, fuel, or compression. said the engine runs strong and that a an intermittent glitch in the computer may be causing the problem.

wanted to run it by you guys as well. any ideas?

thanks

 

Wish I had the answer for you. My car has the exact same symptoms only it is cylinder #3. It seems to get worse when the AC is on and it is really hot under the hood. Mine is stock wires in stock looms so I don't see how a wire could be burned, likely a burned wire would be a problem all the time anyway. I changed the plugs and it made no difference. The platinum tips that were in there (64K mi.) looked fine anyway. The next thing I'm going to do is change the wires and opti cap to see if that makes any difference. I'm not buying the computer theory.

 

Anybody?

 

Well, it would help if you give more info, like what year and model of car, any mods, and the exact code number that was pulled.

 

Yes, the exact code helps.... "random" generally applies to a miss that is not cylinder specific, I think. If you have a definite miss only on Cyl #2, there has to be something wrong that is specific to that cylinder. As heat increases, the plug wire insulation may break down. Maybe there is corrosion on the Opti end terminal of the plug wire. Plug is cracked.... wire is loose on plug terminal... injector is sticking or leaking (they don't like heat when they are about to fail).... sticking valve or faulty lifter.... bent pushrod.... damaged rocker.....

There are a lot of things that can go wrong that are specific to the cylinder.