Bushwick

Crank position sensor can cause misfires. An internally shorted sensor like an O2 (even a shorted heating element can do this) can cause misfires as well, though I'd expect it to be a random misfire vs. specific. Also, check the wiring going to the coil. If you see ANY exposed wire through the rubber, fix as needed. Anything from chaffing, heat, rodents, etc. can cause problems. Are you getting ANY other codes at all? Even ones pointing to something else? And has it actually thrown a misfire code since you swapped the coil pack? My '95 seems to like idling around 650 rpm, and has a slightly wonky idle, like an older inline 4 cylinder you'd find in say a late 80's Ford Ranger or similar vs. a newer engine where you can barely tell it's running at idle.

Yeah, aftermarket has come a long way in the past 20 years. I remember the 1st CD players for cars would skip driving over seam cracks in the road. Potholes would cause a 5 sec cut. Too much bass and CD would skip Nowadays we have usb sticks, CD readers that can play w/o issue hitting rough train tracks at 40 mph, and phones connecting wirelessly.

NVM, misunderstood.

Use oven cleaner (it has lye, so double-check can for "lye"). Can usually get it for around $2-4 a can. Go with generic to save money. It's caustic, but tolerable. Can dull polished aluminum, but stuff like this engine, etc. won't matter. Works better than any degreaser imho. Shake can, spray on, let it foam up for 5 minutes, spray off with garden hose water. Repeat for excessive built up or scrap thick stuff 1st, then apply. Works excellent on cast iron, steel, and fugly aluminum. Price per performance is better than anything else out there. Any kind of oil, grease, etc. it strips to factory fresh castings. Works great on oil pans (inside and out) too, as well as pick up tubes, metal screens, etc.

I 2nd the turkey baster method. They use GM trans fluid for some unknown reason and it never ages well. Even if squeak is gone with new belt, fresh pump fluid will keep power steering effort smooth. It otherwise degrades slowly, to the point you can't even tell until one day it's really cold and excessively stiff in spots.

If you want to simulate the rubberized coating, buy a roll of wire heatshrink wrap in a large enough diameter to slip over the line, leaving the ends with enough room to get the fittings loose (can also trim after with razor). Once heated, it'll shrink. Other option is lining with actual vacuum hose instead. I used this to wrap a copper line for a mechanical oil pressure gauge. Copper was about 5' long, so I bought 5' of small dia. heater hose (slightly thicker walling) and left about an inch at each end for fittings. Serves a double use of sleeving the copper, preventing chaffing, making bends smooth w/o pinching, and IF the line ruptures, it should limit the oil to the engine and gauge.

Our programs are still state-level IIRC. They used to be really strict (late 90's, early 00's) and now seem to care more about a CEL being OFF at idle with OBDII scanner connection = fast pass with simultaneous 10 sec tailpipe sniffer idle-speed detection vs. older testing of leaving a tail pipe sniffer in for 5-10 minutes as they did a real-time run on dyno rollers driving through the gears and watching a screen with real-time speed curves where the operator had to match the car's speed with a curve graph to simulate actual driving. They measured HC, NoX, CO, and something else I'm forgetting. Adding alcohol to a normally running car would have failed it in the older test. Also, might wanna be careful as openly admitting to cheating emissions testing as it is still a felony. Had a friend in HS that still has a felony because of something stupid he did 20 years ago.

FWIW, the power steering effort can get more difficult over time due to OLD DEXIII or whatever the car came with. Mine had that issue, and after changing to fresh current equivalent, power steering effort got lighter and smoother. So although these pumps might be "never need touched" the fluid most definitely does.

Engine just needs to be fully warmed up prior to testing. Shutting it off in line, then restarting after a couple minutes won't hurt anything, unless you have a code ready to set during next restart. Main thing is that the cats are at full operating temps prior to testing. Kinda surprised GD recommended alcohol, as that can actually make things worse (that would fail an Ohio e-check). Run whatever gas the engine normally uses in it. If it were me and the car was barely failing, I'd reset the battery, run the car a good 25-30 miles on the highway or leave it in "3" and cruise at 45mph on some long back road for that length, then take it in for the test (after the knock sensor). Maybe stomp on it a few times to blow all the crud out. If your tailpipe is really sooty, then it's running rich. If it's running lean, you might have a vacuum leak, intake leak, etc. Would be wise to do the O2 sensor at that kind of mileage. If thinking injectors, there are ways to test them to see if they are spraying correctly or not, though it might be cheaper/easier to get lower mileage used. w/o codes or proper testing equipment, it's going to be a crap shoot to sort.

My Lincoln has an active alarm (includes red led flashing) + aftermarket CD player (it's own memory), etc. and I only started it 3 times during winter as it sat in my driveway. Temps were in the low teens for extended periods, and even being a V8 it started right up every time. The last time, was roughly 6 weeks between starting. I know I've had other cars over the years that went extended winters and fired up in the spring as well. If you have an old 12v+ test light, disconnect your neg- battery terminal (everything in the car needs to be off, no doors open, no interior, glove box, trunk/hatch lights on, etc. or it'll give a false reading) and use the test light to connect to the disconnected neg- terminal and the battery post. IF it lights up bright, you have something actually draining the battery. From there, you can take back to the dealer and insist it has a drain, or you can try pulling fuses/relays, one at a time (i.e. pull one, check test light, reinsert) until the light goes out. This is how I found a drain on my Subaru, though I had to go a step further and disconnect the connector ON the alternator (which you can try with yours regardless as the alternator itself could have a defect).

The radiator necks for the hoses can be problematic. They are plastic, and can crack with age or over-tightening. It might take full pressure to drip a small amount out, which might not be seen. Pinholes in hoses (radiator, heater, etc.) can open at high pressure, spray a very fine stream/mist which might or might not actually hit anything i.e. lower hose sprays a stream that hits the ground, then immediately close once pressure drops. In this case, you'll most likely still smell it, or you'll end up with steam rolling up from under the hood. Heater cores (speaking in general) or their connections can sometimes leak, which will end up being inside the car and might get wicked up in the carpet or padding. This can cause windows to fog up excessively and you'll most likely smell it in the car.

Yeah, gotta say the autos seem stupidly dependable. 190k+ on my 95' and shifts like a car with an 1/8 of the mileage. I remember auto GM cars in the late 90's with 70-80k miles coming into a trans shop I did removals at with completely burnt trans fluid and needing complete overhauls. Maybe try and find one with a MT and take it for a test drive to see if it's something you'd like. Or get a WRX, etc.

Would help to know who you are referring to so we can avoid this in the future....

Some shops can balance the shaft w/o the actual housing. They'll then ship the hot shaft with the cold wheel bolted down and marked at balance. Then, you have to remove the nut, reinsert through the actual central housing, and try and realign, though there might be an issue of getting the nut exactly back where it was while remaining tight, w/o over-tightening. Think Gloyale was referring to them getting a balanced shaft and reusing an on-hand central housing, and not being 100% correct with the torque value?

At least they are willing to refund. Kudos to them for that. TBH, taking a shop to court is a serious headache, and their attorney will drag matters out. I was out $1k after a shop spent months trying to track an electrical issue, and kept replacing unneeded parts w/o actually fixing it. Spent another $400 at Ford and they discovered the issue in a couple hours as being a crank sensor loom pinched in a timing cover, and rubbing on a pulley (hard to see as the cover hid everything; 92' SHO; was working 90 hours a week at the time so unable figure it out on my own). Took the 1st shop to court, claiming they not only didn't fix the initial issue, they replaced parts that were unneeded. Unfortunately, I got this irritable female judge that knew ZERO about cars, and ruled against me. Was beyond irate as $1k was wasted. GL with the new turbo. Be sure to fill it and hand spin the shaft beforehand to be 100% certain it's lubricated. Have a feeling your shop overlooked something and not your fault.

I was gonna say O2 sensor before seeing your codes. Once an O2 is failing, it can cause it to run wonky. If oem is still in there, it did it's job until now. Would consider replacing that, reset codes, and see if anything returns and go from there. Consider getting a higher quality O2 to avoid possible headaches.

https://www.autocodes.com/p0031_subaru.html Don't ignore that. Remember the Saab I said was good at throwing odd ball curve lessons? It had a heated O2 code (or for the heated element, actual O2 was working) for the downstream O2 which I ignored. After about a year, engine developed a random misfire. While running catless briefly (turbo car) and experiencing a misfire, I tried revving in neutral while car was moving, and heard a large "BOOM". It literally blew the muffler apart at the seams LOL from a backfire. In my case, the physical protective case on the O2 sensor rotted and eventually cracked. An internal short occurred within the O2, and wreaked havoc on the ECU, and was the cause of the misfire due to the short. Engine would eventually stumble badly within 1st 5 minutes of starting engine, then go away.

I know my ej22 has more heat shields than my last 4 cars combined, and several have rattled a bit. PO might have yanked some if those rattled/rotted off, and it might be missing some. MAKE SURE your cats are OK. Any obstructions, or even improper A/F ratios can cause cats to overheat. Had a 92' SHO that wasn't throwing codes, but it's cat was getting hot enough to glow for whatever reason under normal driving, those the cat was practically under the trans tunnel area if it were a RWD car. As you can guess, that level of glow throws off a lot of, well heat. If PO ran the car for awhile with a random misfire or something important causing a misfire, that can over time cause a cat to fail. Have that issue at present with a 99' Continental. It had rodent chew on one bank of ignition coil loom, that was clearly ignored for awhile. After fixing the loom and replacing a couple of affected coils on that side of the engine, the cat demonstrated it had enough, so I need new cats (even though it somehow passed e-check before failing outright, so guess it melted before breaking the honeycomb). FWIRW, the car has 87k miles and stock cats, so it happens. A vacuum gauge connected to manifold vacuum via T connector can give insight on whether a cat it clogging the exhaust flow. Some online vacuum reference charts to aid where the idle vacuum and higher-rev vacuum should be, and how it should react to throttle blipping.

For what it's worth, I strongly suggest getting into a routine when leaving and coming home. I used to be semi-forgetful as well when I was younger, so I started doing a -keys-phone-wallet- "check" every time I'm going somewhere. Everything stays in the front pockets (force of habit from driving semis, as it's possible a wallet can get pushed up and out while getting out and you'll be miles away before realizing) which makes a simple unconscious verification "check" when out and about easy. Once home, everything gets dropped in the same spot. Keys are never out in public unless key chain swipe card is needed.

Around here, it seems to be rust. I know mine has decayed rapidly (rear strut tower broke and has a giant hole; it's welded back and survived another winter like that, but there's rust everywhere and I think the other rear tower is starting to get a hole); doors have bottom rot, rear fenders ahead of the tires have rust, etc. but it runs/shifts/drives like a champ. I personalty rarely see any locally that are older than 97'~. The ones I've seen in junkyards (mid 90's to 00') ALL have high mileage, but are either rusted, wrecked, rough, or probably something goofy wrong with them. As far as a killer, I hear sugar gets the job done

Glad they were able to fix it! With the Saab, it was definitely something in the timing chain area. I had a small air filter-style breather venting to atmosphere, which it didn't like. Once it had vacuum pulling, it stopped making a ruckus. That car could throw some serious oddball lessons at you. Get a vid up of the new engine running!

This might sound like a strange question, but HOW do you have the PCV system hooked up presently? Reason I ask, is I had a 99' Saab 9-3 with the 2.0L and retrofitted a larger GT2560 (custom) turbo and for a time, I was running a breather as the inlet to the turbo was custom to connect to the bigger cold-side housing. Not immediately, but soon it started clanking in the top-end, seemingly at random. Thought it was possibly a timing chain issue, etc. After finally connecting the PCV up correctly, low and behold the sound went away, so something with that particular engine needed the PCV system working correctly to avoid the issue. I even reverted it a couple times just to verify and the sound only manifested when a straight breather filter was connected vs. a vacuum source drawing out. So before completely throwing in the towel, hook everything up 100% THEN see what it might or might not need.

Might as well replace both sides (new calipers, rotors, pads, and slide pins if applicable) to be safe, and to have equal braking force. Other caliper could be in a similar state. Don't forget to thoroughly spray brake cleaner all over the rotors to remove their protective shipping oil.

As Heartless stated, rear lines disolve like butter on these. Brake fluid has a distinct odor, so that can help generalize area. It also coats what it touches, but if entire underside is wet from water, it's harder to see. If no luck, fill reservoir, and have someone else pump the brakes slowly while looking under the car for drips or spraying. My 95' Legacy has had 3 brake line failures. 1st was rear above the rear crossmember, 2nd was a side line in the rear, and last one was passenger side front behind the front tire, where it feeds through the body opening in the engine compartment. Once they are squared away, test furure failures by standing on the brakes (safely). The 2nd failure I experienced, was on a snow covered road after a pick up plow truck backed out of a driveway into the road w/o looking in advance. I stood on the brakes and line ruputured. Came about 10' from t-boning him and brakes were a 1-shot use in that panic stop.

You can get nuts at the auto parts store. Take one of yours with you, and use their little thread pitch demo hanging on the shelf (with all the little bolt threads sticking out). Autozone I know has flanged nuts in higher grade. USE antiseize on them to save future headaches and protect current threads.