First time posting here, I’m hoping someone will be able to help.
I have a 2002 Optima 2.4 with 131xxx miles on it. Over the last few months it has on occasion been running poorly and I had pinned that issue on its transmission (i waited way too long to change the fluid and it now has burnt seals).
A week or two ago it wouldn’t start, I don’t know much about cars, but I worked with it anyway and got it to run. After a few more days of poor performance at times i decided that I should put new plugs in it since its been about 50 - 60k miles. Once the new plugs were in the car began running poorly all the time. The brand new plugs after a small amount of use had become black on the ends. I borrowed my neighbors ODB tester and found that there was a misfire on #2 (P0302). I got the car to a local repair shop to have it checked out, the mechanic looked at it over the course of a day or so and he could not figure out exactly why it was not firing, but he did find out that #2 is fine, however 1 & 3 are not firing (from passenger to drivers side). He had run compression tests on all the cylinders and they came back within range, but the backpressure on the exhaust system way off. He called me and let me know that he believes the catalytic converter has failed and that they run about $400.
I use this car for work and work only, it had been ran into 3 times last year and I used the insurance money elsewhere. That of course is a different story, but it explains why I didn’t want to put that kind of money into it for a 'maybe' fix.
I took the car home and put it on ramps, let it cool down and then disconnected the exhaust. Once I had access to the converter I saw that it was indeed bad, so I took a screwdriver and hollowed it out. Now I have essentially a test pipe on the car, so i reconnected everything and started it up. It did run better now, but it is still only firing 2 cylinders >
Since then I have taken it back to the same mechanic and together we found that all the cylinders are getting gas (stethoscope) and that they are getting sparks. I have also swapped out the injectors from 2 & 4 with those from 1 &3 just in case. At this point I am at a total loss and don’t even know which way to look.
I'm afraid I will have to replace the car, but with a new baby in the house its just not in the budget. If anyone has any suggestions please please please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
2 cylinders only = (
Linear Mode
