So I changed my spark plugs and air filter on friday, for the first time. I went with the bosch Platinum Plus plugs (before doing any searching on here). The first 2 days were fine, then after that, driving home from work, the car started idling somewhat rough, as well as hesitating while accellerating. After a short while my check engine light came on. Got home, hooked up the OBD reader, and found the engine code stating "Crank Shaft Sensor Error". I reset the code, and the car seemed much better, but still some minor hesitation, but nothing like it was before. So today I pulled the plugs and checked the gaps. 2 were at .05 and 2 and .045. I adjusted them and tried again, and it was as bad as it was sunday night, but no engine code. Would it be fair to say that the plugs woudl cause this problem and I should just toss them and get the AC Delco plugs? I didn't have any problem before hand.

Thanks!

Oh, 97 5spd, 210,000km 2.2L

im hearing bosch is bad for our cars .. my car idles wiered with them also.. reason enough for me to get the oem delcos this weekend.

it probably wasn't the plugs....

Try replacing your crank sensor...... since that's what the scanner said was the problem.

if this ignition system is to blame..... you will usually get a misfire code instead.

i have bosch...no problems. i found out they were gapped wrong when i checked them 1 day. my fault for not checking them first. still didnt cause any kind of rough idle or codes

I had bosch Platnium plugs in my 01 2.2 cavalier, They did cause lots og idling issues for my car. I just put AC delco Platnium in car idles way better then it did before, Also I would be thikning of getting youre Crank sensor tested or replaced as weebel was saying that could correct the issues u are having.

Good Luck.

So I switched my plugs to AC Delco plugs, and same thing really. So I suppose I should change the crankshaft sensor. So where exactly is this sensor on a 97 2.2L? Can't really locate where the haynes manual is pointing to.... Did a search here and didn't find anything conclusive. Anyone have a photo showing roughly where?

Ok, so yesterday I swapped out the crank shaft position sensor, in hopes it would fix the problem (and what a pain in the ass that was). Anyways, got the new one in, and it's doing the exact same thing.

If i'm accelerating under 3k RPM, it's fairly jerky and hesitant, until I hit about 3k, then its normal. Shift up, and it does the same thing again till I hit 3k. It seems to usually idle fine, though I've noticed it being a bit rough occationally. Any idea what I can check next? What else might cause the problem?

Might want to test youre coil packs, Just test to see if you got the correct ohm readings. Also make sure youre plug wires are sucured properly too.

Gonna try replacing my spark plug cables, if it's not better, I'll check my coils then. How exactly would I do that? And what should the readings be?

You should have only a few thousand ohms resistance on the spark wires. Look in the manual, but if it's anything like my Honda I used to have it shouldn't be higher than 20,000 ohms (at which my new wires barely pushed 4,000)


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We all drive in a yellow Cavalier...

Update:

So it seemed to be getting worse, so I switched the cables tonight instead of waiting for the weekend. Problem seems to be resolved and was running just fine tonight!

Thanks for the help all.