There are a few things to do to when trying to diagnose a misfire. All vehicles are different, but there are a few places to start.
1)If possible use an OBDII scanner on newer vehicles. The misfire counter function can help you determine which cylinder is behaving badly. Clearly this is not an option for all people and vehicles though.
Note)Even without engine scanners you can identify which cylinder is causing a dead misfire. Carefully disconnect one spark plug at a time. If the cylinder you are disconnecting is operating properly you will hear a change in RPM. If the cylinder you disabled is the bad cylinder you will see no change in engine behavior.
2)Check your ignition system. There are several steps to this.
A)Remove spark plugs and check to see if the electrodes look worn down or contaminated. Check your spark plug gap with a plug gapper to see if the electrode has worn down.
B)Use a multimeter to check your spark plug wire resistance. They should read roughly between 2,000 - 12,000 Ohms. What you are really looking for is an open circuit in one of the wires. Bend the wires around and see if you lose continuity.
C)Check cap and Rotor. Look for carbon tracking or extremely worn down rotor.
D)On newer vehicles with distributeless ignition systems coils are prone to failure. If you know which cylinder is misfiring try swapping that cylinder's ignition coil with another cylinder and see if the misfire moves with it.
3)If you know your ignition system is operating properly you may want to check compression. You may already have the spark plugs out from your ignition check so it only takes a minute to check engine compression.
4)Fuel injection Service - The motorvac service works miracles. It is available at most repair facillities. Adding a can of fuel injector cleaner to your fuel tank is not ecnough to clean out a severely plugged injector. The motorvac solvent is much more potent and should only be used with a fuel injection cleaning machine. It is a good place to check with a hard to find misfire.
5)Vacuum leaks - A vacuum leak will cause a misfire. If the leak is near a certain cylinder that cylinder will misfire. You can try to find a leak by spraying down the engine carefully with carb cleaner. If you spray the location of the leak the RPMs will rise. You can also inject the intake manifold with smoke from a smoke machine and look to see if it leaks out anywhere it is not supposed to.
Those are a few things to check.
First make sure power from Battery source via use of ignition key is valid, check each plug wire for cuts brokeness etc. if found change them, next if wires are good check plugs one at a time check gaps, age is important if they are old style plugs just replace em. if all these things are good, then you probaly have a distributor cap issue, or may need computer checked to see if you are getting correct firing order, but this can happen with distributor caps has well.
depends on what is wrong with it you may need a new engine to fix it
this is a tough one and doesnt have a definite answer. my first answer would have been spark, but if you've replaced most of the ignition, that shouldn't be a problem. it may still be the plugs or the wires, which you didn't specify replacing. i would first test spark on all 4 cylinders with a spark tester. you can get them from most auto parts stores and they can tell you how to use them, or you can see my other answer to someone's question about replacing plugs & wires to fix ignition problems. my second answer would be compression. try testing your compression on all 4 cylinders. you can usually rent or do loan-a-tool thru autozone or advance/schucks/kragen auto parts to get off cheaply on doing this. you may find that 2 or more don't have adequate compression for proper firing. third would be fuel. if your smell a strong fuel odor, it may be that your injectors are cracked or not properly sealed, or the wires or connectors are bad and the injectors aren't functioning at all( = no fuel). another possibility (and a relatively remote one) is that your catalytic converter has melted or broken components inside and is restricting exhaust flow, causing a backflow or incomplete exhaustion of the cylinders, resulting in a misfire (another symptom of this may be that the misfiring cylinders are not always the same ones). try hitting your catalytic converter gently with a fist. if you hear a rattling inside the cat., i would take it to an exhaust shop and have it looked at or replaced. hope it helps!
Not knowing which mirror on what vehicle, many glass shops can replace the mirror if that is all that is broken.
take the plug wire off one of the plugs leave it in the hole have somebody crank the engine listen for the spark tick should be very loud do this on all four cylinders one at a time if you have no spark on any of the cylinders it is the crank sensor
try changing your spark plugs if theres any.
Take it to your local garage and have them fix it.
buy a hanes manual at oreilly auto parts. cost about $16 it will show you how to fix all problems on your car.
check make sure the firing order is correct.
Find out why it is only running on 2 cylinders. Can be bad spark plugs, defective coils, bad fuel injectors, defective spark plug wires, etc.
yes , well if a macanick can do it then were sure that we can fix a car with are bear hands we just have to have the skills to do it that's all! :)
fix my car
well trans fluid in all the cylinders will work or a rebuild
"white smoke" is steam, which means coolant is getting into cylinders. usually means cylinder head gasket or cylinder head is faulty
1,3,4,2
All cars are differently wired. What type, model, and years is the car?
Do a compression check on all cylinders if its realy low on one or more cylinders chances are you got a blown head gasket ( replace ) are you loosing antifreeze fluid its in your oil ?