Shudder and hesitation

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fudgedelic

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To give a little background information this is an 02 V8 with just under 80k miles on it. I had the valve cover gasket issue at just over 50k and had that fixed, now im not sure if they did one or both but anyways. My main symptoms are intermittent sluggish acceleration/hesitation which is mostly noticeable under heavier throttle but not always. It just doesn't seem to rev smoothly, it will kind of stick sometimes and then all the sudden break through and the power comes on again. It feels similar to when i had the gasket and coil problem but not exactly, it's doing a lot more strange things as well this time. It also has a signficant shudder when reaching torque converter lockup around highway speeds, atleast i believe thats what the torque converter is doing when the engine settles in for cruising? I'm no car expert. In any case it doesn't happen very often, perhaps a couple times every 100 miles. Also a couple times it had a real rough/shaky idle when i came to a stop but only did that a couple times and went away. I recently went to a slightly more agressive tune with my Xcal but that was a couple thousand miles ago and this problem just showed up. Any chance this is related to the tune? Anyways just wanted to see if anyone had some thoughts or ideas about this before i bend over for the dealer.
 
gee it sounds like the start of failing Coil syndrome. I have the same behavior with my LS and by now I'm fairly certain it is almost entirely the coils. I drove mine with a datalogger and in there was so much engine load variation I suspect the tranmission lock up algorithums don't know what to make of it.
 
My money would be on a failing coil. The car can behave differently depending on which coil starts to fail. My #2 cylinder coil just went the other morning and I thought the car was going to die.
 
this is probably a stupid question but... if you replace the gasket before the coil completely goes do you need to replace the coil or will there be no permanent damage. basically, can you clean the oil off the coil. clean the oil off the coil. clean the oil off the coil. sorry, i like rhymes.
 
it depends. Once the coil has had the oil on it for sometime, it is suspect and might be gone as soon as you get it put back together.
Since these coils are so marginal anyway and the task is so labor intensive, I would think that just replacing all the suspect parts while you are in there is worth it.
 
Yeah i guess i was kind of afraid of that. That also answers one of my questions too because it seemd when i had the gasket replaced that that was all they did, no replacement of any coil. Sigh, i guess i'll just have to bring it in and see what the damage is.
 
Don't worry, dooneybaby will post here in a minute with a link to an ebay auction where he's selling cheap replacement coils :)
 
If it turns out to be a bad coil how difficult are they to replace? If this is something that isn't too complicated i'd much rather have it just cost me the 100 bucks for the new coil.
 
Well, we are trying to get better coils produced right now, but if you cant' wait for the HD stuff, then even I say get the 18 dollar coil.

On the V8 I know one side (passenger I think) is much easier to work on than the other.
They both seem bad on the V6 so I'm gonna hold out as long as I can to try and get the HD coils before I go in to replace anything.

the first step is get the car scanned and see which coil is bad, then you can determine better if you can handle the job yourself or not.
 
Ok, yeah it's going in tomorrow so they can tell me whats wrong, most likely i wouldn't do it myself but i do know someone with a lot of mechanical experience i'd probably be able to convince to help out. Or if the price is right i might just let the dealer take care of it. Thanks for all the replies.
 
Jeezz... through the dealer, expect to pay for at least an hours labor plus $100 for the coil. On the V8 all you need is a 7mm socket an extension and an elbow. Remove the small bolts on the coil covers located on each cylinder head, then disconnect the harness from the faulty coil, remove the small bolt that secures the coil to the valve cover. Replace the coil then reinstall everything. Places like Autozone, RockAuto, PartsAmerica, NAPA, etc. all carry coils for about $50. Someone local to you, other than the dealer, should carry them.
 
Hmmm well i guess that is kind of what i was wondering, i wasn't sure how difficult of a project to tackle it really was, that sounds like something i wouldn't mind taking a shot at. thank you.
 
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