Hesitation/loss of power issues. My car is having them

[Jand3rson]

This is a problem that I had last year, and it went away, but now it's back and seems to be a little worse than before. In 2nd gear under moderate to heavy acceleration, I get a definite hesitation/loss of power, and sometimes still doing it out of 2nd and into 3rd. The car doesn't die or anything like that, it just bogs down, and feels like something is holding the car back. It doesn't do it all the time, but more often than not.

What are some things that could be causing this? Is it a fuel issue? I just repaced both pumps with used (low mileage) units, but I have never done the fuel filter. Or is it possibly an ignition issue? I recently did the spark plugs, but I haven't done the cap/rotor/plug wires since I've owned the car. Plees, I need halp!

[Jesse30]

do the fuel filter and all the ignition tune up parts. Aside from that have you checked the TP sensor? is your ecu chipped?

check your injectors and make sure they are all firing too. clean the connections to those cause they may have just gotten a little dirty.

[Jand3rson]

I haven't checked the TPS, and my ECU is chipped. How does one check the TPS sensor?

[CorvallisBMW]

Seafoam :)

srsly though Jesse30 is right. Fuel filter + cap + rotor + check the resistance in your plug wires

[Jand3rson]

I did seafoam a few months ago. I just called and got the fuel filter, going to pick it up later.

[DSP74]

My car was progressively losing power and felt the same way. Like driving into a hurricane headwind. Changed the cap/rotor with one from Alex that only had 600 miles.....visibly in better condition than mine. Car feels 100% better. Lesson learned....Come next autox season I'll be sure to keep new ones on the car.

[Bimmerista]

My eta had a problem exactly like the way you explained it last year and it turned out to be a TPS.

[smonkbmw]

cap and rotor helped our eta out greatly, still need to do plug wires though.

[Jand3rson]

I did the fuel filter last night, and the problem has yet to come back, but I'm still going to do the cap & rotor in a few days.

[KenC]

My M10 had issues just like that a while ago, and changing the FPR fixed it.

[dvmotorsports]

Sounds familiar

I had the EXACT same problem in my GTI and MR2. Go pull your cap and see if there is any oily residue inside. Even the slightest bit will cause the car to run like shit. Odd thing is, you would expect it to happen all the time. But no, mine only happened in a certain RPM range.

[SpartanTiger81]

How do you check the TPS sensor?? I've did the cap, rotor, filter, plugs, ecu. I've got a can of seafoam waiting to go in. haha

[expressfish]

I had the same hesitation only after warm up. My idle would surge up and down, not a whole lot but noticable. It would also hesistate while going thru the gears like yours is doing. Turned out to be my o2 sensor. I unplugged it and ran the car around the block, it started running normal thru the gears.........so I stopped and plugged it back in and the problem came back. You should be able to un plug it at the passenger firewall area. It also failed the ohm test.