Frustrating day.

Yesterday the car was running fine - drove up and down our road and all seemed ok.

Went out this morning and it started running like a dog on 2 cylinders I think. After about 10 minutes of tick over the other cylinders seemed to kick in and it settled down.

I am assuming this is the legendary sticky valves the older zetec engines can get..
I do have 5w30 oil.

Anyone have this problem - if so how do you solve it on an car that isn't used every day?

Cheers

Frank

probably just fould up the plugs

My zetec fiesta does that if I don't run it for a few days. oil drains out of the hydraulic tappets and you get zero compression to start the engine.

Shat meself the first time it happed as I though the cambelt had gone lol.

I just start it up everyday now lol

Should have built a BEC rather than one of those unreliable car engined versions!!

was there any rattle at the same time, dont know if zetec rattle like the old CVH's did with dodgy hydraulic tapets, wonder as it was on two cylinders if it was the coil starting to break down?? if its tappets its possible to take them apart and clean the gunk out of them, i did it when rebuilding my head dont know if it was a sucess yet as not put the head back on

[Edited on 21/2/10 by will121]

Could be the coil starting to go and kicking in when it had warmed up a bit.

Either that or tappetts draining down? Was it rattling?

if its the sticky valves put forte injection clenaner in the fuel and they also do some stuff that you can put through the inlet manifold via a vac hose with a screw in it to slow the suction that will help then rev the nuts out of if,it will kick out white smoke for a bit,but drive it hard and it should improve.used it several times on various cars.

[Edited on 22/2/10 by jonesier1]

Wynns Hydraulic Lifter Treatment is a good move if you suspect the tappets are jacking up.