2000 Dodge neon sputtering

When I press on the gas it spits and sputters and then goes on . What should I look at first? Thanks in advance, Jum


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My sister used to have a mid to late 90's neon and it did the same thing shortly after she bought it. The check engine light was coming on and it was throughing out a couple igition codes, I don't remember exactly what they were though.....

I took a look at the plug wires and they were pretty rough looking so I replaced those, I also figured I'd put some new spark plugs in while I was at it. The plugs had some oil built up in the tubes that they sit in. The seals for the spark plug tubes in the valve cover gaskets were leaking and the tubes would get enough oil built up in them that the plug and boot were socked in oil. After changing the plugs and wire it ran fine and the check engine light didn't come back on, at least it was fine untill she hit a light pole......


Hope that helps.....

Thanks, I was going to change the plugs and wires and go from there.

howdy there if the CEL light comes on then take it over to auto zone and they will scan the compute for free then you look up the code in haynes manual and it will at least tel you what system the problem/cause it in
a basic tune up would be first

then if no good then fuel pressure check as you may have a dying fuel pump

if still no good then have the TPS checked also the EGR valve

carbon will mess both of these up and make it run badly

common issue.,

old/original worn-down plugs is the most common cause of bad running engines on these types of later vehicles however.

if none of these do it then its possible the catlytic converter might be plugged and beyond its service life

if its plugged the it will get extremely hot noticeably and sometimes will glow red

and mostly has lack of power to accelerate or even run at all sometimes, especially at normal operating temps, because it blocks the exhaust pipe flow almost completely

usually something causes the converter to do this, rich fuel mixture mainly., raw fuel will quickly ruin a converter.



have seen this happen quite a few times over the years on vehicles we have had in for service in the shop here.,


good luck