Check Engine light came on.. :/

[Big K]

Yeah, so about a week after I got my new exhaust my check engine light came on. I took it back to the guy who did the install to have him plug in his OBD II diagnostic dealio, and instead of coming up with a failed oxygen sensor as I was expecting with the new exhaust it instead came up with "Cylinder 6 Misfire". Can anyone help me out here? What does that mean exactly about the severity of the problem? I've been wanting to take it in to the mechanic to have him look at it, but I'm flat broke. I have noticed a little bit before the light came on that the truck studders a bit from time to time, and occasionally is a unsteady when on the throttle. Other than that it drives great! It doesn't sound bad either, and my fuel mileage isn't terrible. I mean, it's rough at idle early in the morning, and studders pretty good when you're at WOT, but overall it doesn't seem too severe. Regardless I'm still too broke to take it to the mechanic, but I am really interested to hear if this could be terminal or not since I still owe quite a bit and whatnot.



Would love some responses..



Thanks!

 

[Kevin Palmer]

It could be very minor, don't worry to much just yet.



If he did cat back exhaust, chances are he did not cause the issue. If it was from the manifolds back, then he may have.



It could be as simple as a cracked spark plug or a bad wire.



You can do the following to isolate it out a bit.



Swap two wires around that are close to the same length, get the light cleared and drive the Trac. When the light comes on, if the miss moved to another cylinder, chances are strong it is the wire (as you moved it to the new cylinder).



If it is the same cylinder, then it can be the spark plug or the injector. It could also be a very small vacuum leak as well, so check the elbo that always goes bad just to make sure..

 

[scott degroot]

A misfire can wipe out the catalytic converter, cause a decrease in performance...duh, and casue a drop in mpg. A good catalytic converter properly installed will run you $500+ adn fuel is just south of $4 a gal so you be the judge of how severe the problem is.



Given your descripton of the problem it sounds like you have a plain old secondary ignition misfire and from the code it sounds like it's cylinder #6 that is doing it. My recomendation to you is to get yourself a set of oem spark plugs, don't let the parts store sell you Bosch or some other garbage, and a set of Denso plug wires, you can find cheaper plug wires but they are garbage.



If you are mechanically inclined you can change the plugs and wires yourself, there is probably even a how to in the projects section

 

[Todd Z]

Also make sure they did not knock any thing loose under the hood if you had the oil changed or something recently tooo....



Check the basics first...



Todd Z

 

[Big K]

So I took it to the mechanic this morning (I like to let professionals look at engine-related issues), and get this.. He told me that because of the dual-exhaust being put on the ECU has to sort of relearn how it's supposed to run. He said the best thing I can do is take it on an open road and go WOT for a little bit, that way the system can quickly relearn how to fire correctly.



Talk about BS. Thankfully this guy didn't charge anything just to give me his quick (and more than likely wrong) diagnosis.



Sigh.



It still runs really rough from time to time, and now I'm not sure what to do. He refused to check it out because he "knows" what the problem is, but I don't like risking the health of my vehicles engine on his ego.



Help?