Not firing on all cylinders when starting from standstill

[rmccl54]

My wife's p5 (135k) recently has been behaving badly. Runs fine when cold but after a thorough warm up the following may occur:
- after stopping idle is briefly rough but bounces back
- when starting from said stop it is low on power and probably running on 2 or 3 cylinders briefly. If I floor it, it will snap out of it and run normal usually.

I replaced the intake air tube as it was cracking, etc. Did not help.

It got worse and cel came on throwing errors P0660 and PO303.

I replaced the coils, the plugs and wires I replaced about a year back, which is not to say the wires aren't the problem. Did not help.

Cel came back on, this time it was PO302.

Replaced the egr valve. Seems like that might have fixed it but after 15 mins of driving, nope.

The 660 error involve the vics/vtcs solenoids and they are supposed to arrive tomorrow, but I am not confident.


So to summarize, I've replaced the air tube, the coils and the egr valve to no avail. Coming up are the vics/vtcs solenoids, and I should probably do the plug wires as well and at least look at the plugs.

Wonder if anyone knows of any other likely culprits. If the vics/vtcs solenoids and plug wires don't fix it then I will have to hand it over to my local shop and I don't do that often.

THANKS!

bob

 

[Jackie chan]

Condition of the vacuum hoses going to the VICS/VTCS? And is your car of the age that was effected by the vtcs recall?

 

[rmccl54]

Condition of the vacuum hoses going to the VICS/VTCS? And is your car of the age that was effected by the vtcs recall?

Thanks for the reply. Hoses are ok, and no pertinent recall shows up for this one ... but pretty sure its solved. After several days in the shop it was discovered that one of the plugs was oil fouled. Probably via the valve cover. That should have been the second thing I checked if not the first. D'oh!

 

[Natey]

Stoked you found the problem. Might be a good idea to replace the vics solenoid anyway. Cheap, easy to access and infamous for making Proteges do what yours is doing.

http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123850345-VTCS-the-same-part-number-as-EGR