This is hard to describe..........has 70k miles on it..........check engine light is on. When you turn the car on it immediately starts shaking and jumping (engine), but along with that the RPM meter goes up and down and then goes from a normal position (in idle) between 0 and the 1 to dangerously close to the 0 where it seems like it might shut off. If I give it a huge amount of gas it seems to help. This continues while in drive, I will be driving and the rpm meter will fluctuate and the car will actually kind of buck and shake affecting my ability to maintain same speed. Again gassing it helps. Then stopping at a light it does the dipping wayyy down below 1 while the engine shakes and jumps.

So there seem to be 2 symptoms: while in idle the rpm meter revves back and forth between 1 and 0 seeming like it might shut off while the engine shakes a lot, then while driving, while accelerating and in drive, the suv will change its rpm, the meter will go up and rev and then down and the car shakes a lot. Giving a surge of gas at start up helps quite a bit to reduce the syptoms.

Anyone have any clue here?? Thanks!

 

Hi and welcome to the forums!! If you could please put your car's info into your signature (year, model, engine, trans etc) it would help us all out

Is your check engine light on? If so have you had the codes read (Autozone will do it for free)?

Any weird smoke out the exhaust? It is sounding like you have a major misfire, keep driving it with a misfire and you could melt your cat-converter if its an ignition misfire or worse.

 

Hello and thank you!!

It is a 2001 tribute ES V6, automatic. I will create a signature as well.

I didnt know auto zone does the code reading for free, will have to stop by. I was hoping maybe it was a clogged fuel line since also occassionaly after starting the car, putting it in drive and stepping on the gas it sputters as though the gas isnt getting through or something and I have to continue to press the accelorator to get it finally going..........no weird smoke, no overheating, also the problem isnt constant, sometimes its worse or better. Thank you for the comment!