My Nubira did the most bizarre thing...

[RobertCooper245]

The night before all this happened, I drove to work, and my car was running fine, no hint of any problems.

I work my 8-hour overnight shift, and when it's time to go, I start my car, and instantly I notice the car running roughly. My first thought was "What the hell?," I open the hood and see the engine shaking badly. I get back in the car and my check engine light comes on. I try to see if I can drive it, and the CEL starts blinking as soon as I touch the accelerator. So, I park it and leave it alone. I then call to get a ride from my wife's grandfather.

I come back the next day, in the middle of the afternoon hoping that the problem was a fluke. Start it up, and it still has the same problem. I check the CEL with my scanner, and I get a P0301 Cyl. 1 Misfire code. "Okay, this'll be a cinch to fix" I thought, "I'll just replace the sparkplug and the wire on Cyl. 1, and everything will be just fine!"

I decide to buy a set of new sparkplugs and wires (because why not replace them all while I'm down replacing one?), then start it up again, hoping for the best.
Nope.
Problem still persists.

Okay, I read up a little further on my error code and decide to go after the ignition coil. I swap the old coil with a new one, and start it up again.
NOPE.
Problem STILL persists.

I take a flathead screwdriver and start checking the fuel injectors while the car is running, hoping to spot a bad injector. All 4 are working just fine according to my "put one end of screwdriver to injector, other end to ear" test.

At this point, I'm thinking the worst: that the headgasket has crapped out or one of the valves has bent. I'm also ready to go apeshit.

Because of tight funds and poor service from tow truck drivers and nearby garages, my car is laid up at my work for almost 3 WEEKS while the problem persists.

I get it towed to my mechanics on Saturday, and ask for them to do a compression & leakdown test on Monday.

I go to the mechanics on Monday to see the status of my car (and to brace for an expensive repair estimate) and, in a bizarre twist, the car ran just fine without them doing ANYTHING. All they did was drive it into the garage bay, and as soon as they did that, the engine ran fine again and the CEL turned off.

I drove it all over this week, and haven't had a repeat of the problem since. It almost feels like it also GAINED a bit of power since then, but I don't have any hard figures to back up my feelings.

While I'm happy to have my car running just fine (maybe even better than fine), I also HATE with an iron fist problems like this one. I've worked on every car I've owned since high school to an extent, and this is the kind of problem I've FEARED to get before now, and why I got a scanner to prevent it from happening Yet, I've never experienced such a problem. Even my mechanics have no idea what it could have been.

Anybody want to take a whack at what happened to my Nubi?

P.S., my car is a 2000 CDX station wagon with the 2.0L D-Tec 4-cylinder, just in case this matters.

[Daniel]

Does mechanic has had the opportunity to measure the compressions before the engine returns to normal?
I think to a sticky valve or hydraulic lifter.
How many miles on the clock?
Recently serviced?

[RobertCooper245]

Does mechanic has had the opportunity to measure the compressions before the engine returns to normal?

> No, he didn't. The problem corrected itself before he could do anything, and he knows me well enough to know that if there's nothing wrong, then no need to go further. My wife's grandfather also has a compression gauge and knows how to do it for free, so I'll probably have him do a test before the week's over.

I think to a sticky valve or hydraulic lifter.

> That's what he suggested might be the problem as well, and recommended that I pour a can of Seafoam on my next fill-up. Anybody have any idea how serious this can be, and how to correct it so it doesn't catch me off guard again? Hopefully when I have some money to spend on repairs, I can get this corrected.

How many miles on the clock?

> 76662 miles, at the time. (Do you think the 666 was a bad omen?)

Recently serviced?

> No more than a week before this happened, I took my car to a Grease Monkey to get the oil changed. Besides that, they topped up my coolant and replaced a bulb that burned out from my taillight. That was it.

[Puddle31]

any chance it was a fuel problem? A while back i had a bad miss on my Lanos and was thinking the worse stuff too. I even got an ignition coil because it was a clear misfire. I had just done the fuel filter not that many miles before, but just ona whim did it again. That took care of the problem. I would start cheap, you might get lucky.

[Daniel]

How many miles on the clock?

> 76662 miles, at the time. (Do you think the 666 was a bad omen?)

You bet?

[RobertCooper245]

any chance it was a fuel problem? A while back i had a bad miss on my Lanos and was thinking the worse stuff too. I even got an ignition coil because it was a clear misfire. I had just done the fuel filter not that many miles before, but just ona whim did it again. That took care of the problem. I would start cheap, you might get lucky.

I bought a fuel filter after I left the shop just in case, and will be putting it in soon. I wouldn't expect the problem to be a fuel filter, but who knows.

[PrecisionBoost]

Fuel filter does sound like good starting point, I had a similar type of problem with a car once, fuel filter clogged while driving, couldn't get it started, waited 10 minutes, engine was very grumpy, stalled out, couldn't get it started.

Came back the next day it was fine, drove it all the way home and just as I hit the driveway the engine started knocking and it stalled out again.

For the hell of it I pulled apart the fuel filter and it was clogged with what looked like flakes of rust.

Pulled the fuel pump, found the pick up filter had a hole in it allowing larger particles to flow through the line.

Replaced both filters, car was fine, felt like I gained 20hp