QuestionMy friend has a 1992 Plymouth Sundance (aka rebadged Colt) with either a 2.2L or 2.5L engine (claimed to be a mitsubishi by several people) and it has a very annoying problem.
During various times it develops a 'surging'. The engine will hardly accelerate and the RPM probably goes up and down 600 RPM while the whole car jerks.
It does this quite randomly honestly. When the engine is warmed up, cold, dead cold, just ran and let sit for 5 minutes, any gear and any speed (today doing a 4th gear pull up to 70km/h it did NOT want to accelerate and just jerked and took about 30 seconds to come up in RPM sometimes during all those times it's fine. It only seems to do it below a certain RPM, no tach so I don't know. At a higher RPM it's fine.
I can't find any information on it but I'd like to get it fixed.
Thanks in advance
-Colin
AnswerHi Colin,
The 2.2 or 2.5L fours are both Chrysler engines.
I would suggest that you use the ignition key to readout the engine controller to see if it has detected the cause of the problem. Turn it "on-off-on-off-on and leave it on" then watch the check engine light which will remain "on" to begin to flash, pause, flash, etc. Count the number of flashes before each pause. Then repeat the key action to re-read the counts for accuracy. The last two sets of flashes are always 5 each. Then take the numbers as they appeared and combine them in pairs to form two-digit numbers which are the fault codes. The last number is 55 which means end of readout. Then write back with the results for further suggestions. You can also get a translator at www.allpar.com/fix/codes.html
This code readout is always smart to do before starting to diagnose or buy parts in hopes of finding the reason.
Roland
