While I was driving on the highway earlier today, my Check Eng. light came on. Went to Advanced Auto Parts to have them check out the code and it came back as a blocked or clogged EGR valve and a cylinder 6 misfire. The thing is, we just replaced all 6 spark plugs BECAUSE when we got it checked out before, it had a cylinder 6 misfire also so apparently the new plugs didn't do much for very long (they were NGK plugs.) The gaskets are all cracked up pretty bad, we didn't replace those when we replaced the spark plugs, so maybe that's the problem?

On a slightly different, but more important note, when we got home my father and I sprayed some Gumout Carb & Choke cleaner into the EGR valve hole (for a lack of better words) and the EGR canister looking thing itself. When we eventually started the car (after 3-4 tries) black smoke started coming out of the back and it idled at 1500 RPM's! We let it sit for ~5 minutes and then decided to help it burn off by taking it for a spin around the black. Bad idea. Without even stepping on the gas, we were going about 10 MPH and as soon as I stepped on the gas, the RPM's started skyrocketing upwards of 3000 RPMS so I immediately shut the car off and brought it home. We called the guy at Advanced Auto Parts (no one else was open) to see what he thought it was and he said we must have broken he $7 gasket on the end of he EGR valve causing a vacuum leak?

Any ideas on what to do next? The car is un-drivable as of now.

 

Is it revving every time you start it? If the spring comes off the throttle it wont pull it back and will continue to rev.

 

Yes, every time I start it. If you manually push back the throttle it will go back to normal idling RPM's though....

 

I'd check the throttle assembly then, not that I know much about it, but someone on here must.

 

try winding the throttle spring back around one time, & make sure it's on the right way.
EGR gaskets usually dont break unless they're not seated right, or completely brutalized.
could be a vacuum leak, but I'd look more at that throttle spring.

& try swapping coils to see if the misfire follows the coils.
and the coil gaskets fix nothing, and cost an extra 20 $

EGR valve is covered under a recall I do believe also along with the throttle spring.

 

Yea, I'll try looking into the throttle issue tomorrow and do what you gusys said, that seems like it very well may be the problem with that. Now, I did order some spark plugs gaskets just becaus ethey were real ypretty damaged and they'll be here in about a week but untill then I'm hoping my thorough cleaning of the EGR will fix the EGR issue and now with the misfire it must be the coil pack if you say the gaskts really don't mean anything. I'll try swapping them around tomorrow. Thanks guys.

 

Also, how do I follow up on the recall?

 

*accidental post*

 

just pop up at your local dealer & say whats up guys?

holler @ that recall!

 

Problem solved! Thanks guys! The problem was there was a little stem sticking up in the throttle cable not allowing it to go back to it's original position. Once that was pushed down it idled like a champ again. I took out the EGR valve one last time to clean it out even better and realized that the guy at Auto Zone was wrong, the gasket was fine as panchostatus predicted, so I'll be returning that soon. Once that got put on I switched the coil pack from cylinder 6 to cylinder 5 to see if that would point the misfire problem, but when I went to go get the codes checked, I had no misfire anymore, so it must have been the EGR the whole time! My gas mileage is also steadily increasing which is a major plus.

 

good to hear brother in arms.

I would take a visit to the dealer to see if your throttle spring and EGR have been replaced with the recalled parts. they should be able to tell.


p.s. I used to work at an autozone and we've been known to have no idea what we're talking about

 

Unfortunately the nearest Jag dealer is 45 minutes away. I'll have to take a trip down there some time soon....