Today’s project was Stacy’s car. It’s a 98 Camry, and running a bit rough. The diagnostic code indicated bad sparking in #2 & #3 cylinders, at least that’s what the Toyota shop said with their interpretation. They wanted to replace the spark plugs and fuel injectors, for about $700. I figured I could check it out a bit cheaper than that.

So I picked up her car in SLC after my job interview yesterday (went well, no offer yet, unsure of my response at the moment). I grabbed some new sparkies and some Seafoam brand fuel injector cleaner (good stuff, by the way). Replaced the sparkies, which were easy to get to. They looked a bit worn, but no gunk on them. Put the can of cleaner in the gas tank (it was about 1/2 full), and drove it home. Ran a bit rough at idle, but freeway speeds were OK, although not much ‘oomph’ as would be expected. But I got it home OK. By the time I got home (about an hour drive, which would be the commute for that job, which is a consideration), it was running a bit better, but still idled a bit roughly, and the ‘check engine’ light was still complaining.

Today I cleaned off the battery terminals (lots of fuzzy gunk on there, probably not related to the problem, but still needed to be done). Listened to the fuel injectors with the magic engine stethoscope and they were clicking normally, so those are working OK. Then wandered to the local Autozone to borrow their diagnostic code reader. The code translated to misfires in #3, which could be bad spark plug wires, so grabbed a set of those ($45) to put in tomorrow.

The current theory is gunked-up fuel injectors, maybe failing spark plug wires. I’ll also give the new spark plugs another check. If that doesn’t fix things, it will be off to the local repair shop. But a $70 investment in new plugs and wires, plus a couple of cans of fuel injector cleaner could be the fix. We shall see.