So I was in town, just left Subway. I noticed my car was kind of driving funny, like it had lost some power. Well I pull into a grocery store to take care of some things. Then when I come back out, I turn on the car and notice it has a weird idle. It would idle at 700, drop to 500, and go back to 700 over and over. Then the service engine soon light came on. I really don't know all that much about engines, but it seems like I might have lost a cylinder? If that's the case, what is the most likely problem? I'm guessing a spark plug or wire went out. The car has 95k miles on it with all original spark plugs and 7 original wires. The other wire was put on at 30k. Any of this sound about right? Any other ideas? Hopefully my dad is going to bring home a code scanner today.

Edit: just went outside and turned the key to RUN. The Check Gauges light didn't go off. The temperature gauge was about 3/4... so I think it also got a little hot.

 

Well I scanned it tonight, code P0300 -- misfiring sure enough. It didn't say which one though. So great -- changing plugs and wires... won't that be fun! I'll probably just end up having to fork over the $ since I won't be able to do it and my dad won't want to. :-/

 

Go ahead and do Opti and water pump at the same time. Change the seals in the front cover. Flush the coolant system and pay close attention to flushing the heater core. Change all the belts and hoses and change out the belt tensioner while your there. Clean the TB, MAF, the IAC and the EGR valve. Use OEM parts and consider changing the O2's also. Nothing like putting in new plugs and fouling them up from bad O2's. Would be a good idea while you have the O2's out to test the back pressure from the cats also.

Consider this, the money you save doing it yourself could more than pay for a rental car if you need to drive it while it's down.