2001 Ford Focus What's Wrong with the car?

HIKITTY3

MEMBER
2001 FORD FOCUS
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
85,000 MILES

I've had many problems with my car since I had it. Earlier this year my car rocked back and forth when it was idle. I took it to Pep Boys, where they did diagnositic and they said to replace the spark plugs. The light came back on and they said change the wires. The light kept coming back on a couple of times and finally stopped after changing both wires and plugs twice. Now my car won't start. When I tried to start the engine I thought I turned the key too fast and the car would shake, so I turned it off. The day it broke down on me, the car start shaking again so I let it roll a little to see if movement would make it stop and it cut itself off. Someone tried to jump it and there was a loud metal grinding noise. Since my car has been sitting around I try to start it and the metal grinding is gone but it still won't start. Someone told me that only one of the spark plugs is firing. What is going on?

1 Reply

CALYPSO93

MEMBER
43 POSTS

This originally seems like an ignition problem, given the shudder, it sounds like a bad ignition coil, which is causing the car to "miss" which means that it's not firing on all four cylinders. About the metal grinding, that could have been from the starter engaging when the engine was running perhaps. Find out what the code was when pep boys did the diagnostic. It will be more helpful for us to see what the computer is saying.