Leon-87S4

I have a 87 928 S4 Auto in wonderful condition. It has 101K miles and has been very well looked after. It has developed an intermittent problem which seems to be getting more frequent. Sometimes the engine will misfire or cut-out for very short periods (0.5 Sec). It is hard to describe but it will still accelerate, just skipping beats frequently. It feels like an electrical failure. At previous times when this happened it went away after a while. Today was the first time it repeated during my commute home.

With the car parked at my house it idles OK, but when I increase the rpm and keep it say at 1300, it will cut and build up to 1300 and cut and build up. Even if I increase the rpm to 2000, it will do the same thing. If it is doing this and I return to idle, it dies. It will restart and idle no problem.

Anybody have any ideas? I apologize for the bad description.
I will make this comment - A few years back in South Africa I had a similar problem in Toyota Camry which turned out to be water in my gas tank, thanks to my local gas station running their tanks real low. I dont think this is the case here but who knows?

jim morehouse

Leon,my '82 had similar but worse behaviour on a badly contaminated tank of gas. I'd siphon it out, change the filter, put in some clean gas and perhaps some dry gas (NOS octane booster) and try it. Cheap and easy. Mine still felt like it had a slight power lag for the first hour or so but I may have been paranoid....after that, it ran fine. My gas was really bad and I also had the plugs changed and the oil (I was out of town on a trip) because gas had seeped past the rings into the oil causing an 'overfull' condition. HTH,
Jim

Randy V

Jim makes some good points. Being from Memphis, your auto parts stores perhaps don't carry a product such as Gas Dry - this is popular in northern latitudes for removing water from fuel systems to prevent freeze-up.

Gas Dry and similar products are mainly straight alcohol that dissolves into the water- it lowers the freezing point and allows the water to be 'burned' off.

Check your auto parts store for something similar, or you can add a pint or two of denatured alcohol to the tank (available at the harware store). Don't use drug store 'rubbing alcohol' - this is only 70% alcohol (30% water)

Leon-87S4

Thank you. I will try that. I really hope it is not a more serious problem. If anybody else has any ideas , please help.

Leon