jvakos

I posted to an existing thread on head gasket issues but also wanted to post my own. I have a cylinder 1 misfire and CEL that's causing rough idle and significant power loss, but car is driveable to about 50-60mph.

My favorite shop has the car and did compression test on all cylinders and confirmed that #1 is not holding pressure properly. They also put the "camera" or whatever it's called into the spark plug holes and checked those out and the walls all looked ok and they didn't find any external fluids (oil or coolant) anywhere.

I'm having them open the head which means a pretty hefty repair bill to see if it's "just" a head gasket replacement or possible bent rod.

My C32 is a 2003 but the date stamped on the driver side door is Nov 2002 so am not factoring out that mine could be one of those that has the camshaft issue.

My question is - if this is the camshaft issue, is the total repair job entail replacing the camshaft and head gasket or is there more to it?????

really really would appreciate any feedback for those who ran into this issue which isn NOT very common from the minimal infor if found or from what I've read on these boards.

Morphh

Sorry to here, I know u love ur car, unless it was running pig rich and washed out one cylinder and rings.

Lenin

When I had the cams issue, I also had to replace an exhaust valve that was bent. I'm away from home now and cannot check your cam part numbers using your VIN and EPC. Find someone with EPC and have them check. The old cams part numbers are listed as "do not install any more" or something like that. How much off from the normal was the compression test readings?

jvakos

Lenin - hey man. appreciate the input! saw your thread on this topic which was very helpful.

so speedriven has the car. their cylinder 1 compression was around 130 and said the other cylinders were about 168-170 (assume that is PSI or??).

this issue started about 3 months with slight vibration and then last week it finally got bad after 2 hour road trip when the CEL came on and power loss. i did the ECU reset and could drive somewhat normal 50-60 mph but the vibration was really bad and ODBII had confirmed Cyl misfire code.

am assuming this EPC online version is similar to the EPC you mentioned?
https://epc.startekinfo.com/epc/

looks like its 75 bux for annual subscription so i may just dothat since i dont know anyone with EPC to run my vin and see if mine was one of the bad camshaft cars.

Lenin

I trust the boys from speedriven to do the job right. Ask them about the EPC. I would be surprised if they don't have access t check your VIN. November 2002 does sound like an early 2003 production date and the problem did effect 2002 and early 2003 production cars. Open the heads and see if there is anything obvious. Then decide how to proceed.

jvakos

Lenin - appreciate the heads up on EPC and to check my VIN. I subscribed to EPC and ran my VIN which does show under the TIMING / CAMSHAFT AND DRIVE TRAIN menu a note (see pic) stating "THE OLD PART MUST NO LONGER BE INSTALLED" so confirms I do have one of the bad camshaft C32's.

i'll let Marcin know to look for that. we'll see where it goes from there (

thanks as always for your input - tremendously appreciated my friend!!