QuestionMy car has been kind of jerking when I step on the gas or am excelerating from a stop sign ext. I bought the fuel cleaning system and put that in the gas tank ext. it ran smooth for a few days and is now back to doing the same thing. I was told it may be that the fuel filter is clogged and its not getting any gas or something. Does that sound right?
AnswerHi Ami,
It certainly could be a clogged fuel filter and if it hasn't been changed for sometime that would be an inexpensive first step to see if that solves the problem.
The usual place for the filter is just in in front if the fuel tank, under the car on the passenger side just inboard from the body "rail". If you find the fuel lines running back to the tank just follow them and you will find a small metal can that is the fuel filter. You merely have to remove the clamps on the hoses, then the hoses, and put the new filter in place. It has a bracket that secures it in place too that is held with a single bolt, usually, so you need to remove that to get the old filter off. When you remove the hoses from the old filter, wrap a rag around it and have a pan available to catch a bit of fuel that will spray out of the fuel lines because the system will be under a little bit of pressure if it has been driven recently. Just ease the hoses off one at a time. There is a technique for relieving the pressure that requires you to jumper between two pins on the fuel supply electrical connector under the hood, but you may not want to get involved in that; but let me know if you want to do that too and I'll tell you how. I think if you have rag and a pan and protect your hands and face from fuel spray it will be o.k. Wear rubber gloves and a protective eye shieldd or your glasses (and maybe shut your eyes just at the moment when you are pulling the first hose off the old filter).
If replacing the fuel filter doesn't solve the problem, we can go from there.
One thing you might want to check even before you go to the filter change out, is to see if the engine controller has recorded any fault codes in the operation of the engine which might also explain your hesitation. Just take the ignition key and turn it: on-off-on-off-on, quickly (within a period of 5 seconds), and leave it 'on'. ('On' means the position where the engine would be running if you had started the car, not the position where the starter is actuated). Then watch the "check engine" light to see if starts to flash, pause, flash, pause,etc. Count the number flashes between each pause and make a mental note or write down the numbers of flashes between pauses. The last two sets of flashes should be 5 in each. Then write back and tell me all the numbers. Again this is the procedure for the cars that I'm familair with, I think it works for the Sebring too. You can repeat the readout as often as you like to make sure you have the counts correctly.
Roland
p.s. all the locations are based on my knowledge of cars uf thru '95, I haven't worked on a Sebring myself, but chances are the filter is where I described it to be.
