[Re and Cheryl]

My daughters 03 Cabrio 5 speed developed a wierd miss the other day. I have not gotten the car to repeat it so I am going off her description of it.

She was driving in town with the A/C when the car developed a light and intermittent miss or shudder when driving, oddly enough the air started blowing warm at the same time. Something had obviously cut out the A/C compressor ( the A/C works perfectly, this is not normal). She stopped somewhere for about 20 minutes and when she restarted the car everything was fine. About 10 min or so down the road the same thing happened again. She called me and when we went to get it a few hours later it ran perfectly the 25 min home. I also drove it 30 min to work and back the next day with no problems.

Any ideas?? I can think of a lot of things that could cause a miss, but have never heard of the A/C cutting out because of a miss.

The motor is the cabrio specific BDC motor. It is a salvage yard motor with about 75k. It has run flawlessly for 5k since installed. I put new plugs, wires, timming belt, and water pump on it when it was installed.

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[Smileybug]

I wonder if its more the AC cutting out makes the car shudder and feels like a miss? I know turning my AC on or off, you can definitely feel it. And if I'm at a light and the AC cycles on and off, the car will shudder a bit. I would look at the AC system for starters. Also, maybe the fuse block on top of the battery.

 

[Re and Cheryl]

Have to cycle the A/C with my daughter in the car to see if that is what she felt. I've driven the car for two days running the A/C the whole time with no problems, car ran great the whole time and A/C never cut
out. Since the engine just went in a few months ago I lifted the hood and disconnected and reconnected every connector I could find. So maybe it was just a loose connector/plug.

Still would like to know what it was. As a mechanic I don't like it when problems just go away on their own.

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[billymade]

On a basic level; have you scanned the car, for any possible trouble codes? Of course; being able to replicate a "miss" or what she describes as one, could be a challenge! As we all know; the "problem" tends to not be repeatable when you; the person who is going to fix the problem... is driving the car! Isn't that the way it always is?