I have a 1997 Camaro 3.8L that has had some rough misfire problems. About a month ago the car started to misfire gradually...it started off as hardly noticable and then became worse and worse. I didn't think that it was plugs or wires because I have just replaced them about 6 months before the misfire started. I went to autozone and had them do a SES light scan, and it came up with :"multiple cylinder misfire" and a crankshaft sensor error. I checked the distributor coils with a meter and they were fine. So I jacked the car up to check the wires and they were falling apart ( 3 out of 6). Anyway, I replaced them and the car ran fine for about a week and a half. Now the car is misfiring again (autozone scan said the same as above), and gradually getting worse. But, this time the plug wires were perfectly fine.


Now, I don't know much of anything about working on cars... could a crank shaft sensor be causing this?? If so, ( and I am using this post as a last resort...searching online isn't helping much) is it difficult for an amature to replace?...is it expensive?
Thanks.

 

did you do your own wires? if so make sure
1. they are very tight on the plugs
2. you replaced thoese metal heat shields back on the boots

i did my own wires and i left on loose and it was still misfiring

as far as crankshaft sensor

but good luck man

 

first things first, get the crankshaft position sensor. Ok now, what cylinders is it misfiring on? Usually a multiple cylinder misfire is a coil pack. However it can be wires or plugs going bad at the same time. If it is misfiring on the same cylinders being controlled by a coil pack then check that one again, if it's still reading good then swap it with another one and go back to autozone and see if it's misfiring now on different cylinders. If all looks good. Then goto the cylinders it is misfiring on. Make sure those spark plugs aren't fowled out. Plugs and wires shouldn't, but can go bad in a matter of 6 months. I had one just fowl out on me for no reason at all. And also go with what joed said. I changed my wires once and you can often forget to tighten the boots. Especially for us with the wraparounds. If all else fails, come back here and give us a little more info i'm sure we can help you fix the problem.

 

ok, I'm about to leave in a few minutes to go buy the crank shaft position sensor. Do any of you know where the sensor is located on the engine block? I have searched all over google, but I cannot get enough information ( I have also lost my mechanics manual on the car). I'm very new to this kind of stuff, I sort of need specifics. Thanks for the help guys.

 

it could be so many things...check the easiest things first...it could be bad spark plugs...or it could even be that your spark plugs arent gapped right... once i bought pre gapped plugs and just popped them in...the gaps were all jacked up and it miss fired like a mother... does it miss at idle only or does it miss while driving too??? might even be clogged injectors...you could just pull them and clean them up...check the injectors for clogs... i wont go into why that causes a car to miss... just check it...its free...usually if its the crank sensor then it will give you a #1 cylinder missfire i could be wrong...but if its multiple cylinder miss fires then i dont think the sensor is your prob...