Chrysler Repair: 96 2.5L V-6 Sebring Timing Belt/ What might cause a miss?, sebring jx, type of plugs


Question
I have a '96 Sebring JX with 191000 miles. It still has the original timing belt. The engine is the 2.5L v6. I want to know if the engine is an interference type or not. If not I will take my chances. I am inclined to spend as little $$ as I can on this car. I have removed the front timing belt cover and inspected the belt. It looks like it has many miles left on it.

On a different topic, I get an occasional 'miss' at idle and rough running when I am slightly accelerating and the rpms are between 1500 - 2000. Giving it more gas, causing it to downshift and rev up greater than 2000 and it tends to smooth out. More likely happens when warm. I have tried the trick you mentioned about the codes. All I get is a 12 (battery was disconnected recently) and a 33(AC relay- my a/c only works intermittently). Any ideas?

Answer
Hi Fran,
Yea, it is a non-interference set up. That is interesting to know that it has gone that far and still looks good.
On the miss, how long since the plugs were changed? The engine came originally with plugs that were nominally supposed to only need changing every 100K, but do you know how long and what type of plugs are in there now? The rear bank of plugs are a hassle to change, requiring some dismantlement.
The other possibility, because you mention temperature dependence is that the temp sensor is inaccurate. You could check how its resistance is changing with the warming of the engine. It should read 9-11k ohms at 77F and 600-800 ohms at 212F. That controls the mixture so it needs to be accurate. That sensor is adjacent to the thermostat housing and has 2 wires. Remove the plug and read across the sensor terminals when the engine is cold and full warmed up.  
Without other fault codes it is guesswork. Think about other parts that might be original and that tend to breadown over time. Other than testing with a scope and a diagnostic readout box a miss is not that easy to cure. You might want to check out the compression to see if one of the cylinders is low, and you can try pulling the spark plug caps off the plugs one at a time to see if one of them doesn't cause much of a change, and that would be the suspect cylinder as the one that is missing.
Roland