'95 Dodge Neon

My daughter has a '95 neon with approx 92,000 miles. She can drive for about 15 minutes then it starts misfiring. It loses power, slows, then after she pulls over it dies. It will usually start right back and previously she could continue driving for another ten or fifteen minutes. Now when it is refired it may not have enough power to take off. She said after it refires it sometimes idles high even though she doesn't have her foot on the gas. It will drive for a few minutes at a time but it will start jerking and lose power. I have read previous posts about neons that sound similar but I have not seen any definitive answers. Has anyone been successful solving this with their neon? She has not replaced the computer but she has changed several other parts.

Very common to see carbon tracking on the outside of the sparkplug porcelain and inside of the sparkplug wire boot on these vehicles.
Change the sparkplugs AND the wires at the same time, be sure to use di-electric paste on the inside of the boots.
If you only change the plugs, the carbon tracked plugwire boots re-contaminate the new plugs very quickly, if you only change the wires, the carbon tracked sparkplugs re-contaminate the boots very quickly.

Use the correct part number Champion sparkplug and use a good quality wire set.

Don't know Neons specifically, but this sounds like a bad coil pack or ignition module..

The car runs fine for the first 15 minutes or so. Wouldn't the plugs and wires be a continual problem? I keep thinking it's something that once it's warmed up it starts to malfunction.

I have the same problem with my 95' neon. I wanted to know if you ever found a solution. Or if anyone else has an idea about what the problem could be.

If you have a solution for this problem please post it here or contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Thank you.


No it's not the plugs/wires.
No it's not the coil pack.
No it's not the computer.
No it's not the ignition switch or safety switch.
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Hello Danny.Lee - welcome to the forum I am happy you joined us.

Couldn't it be the engine and that it needs replacement?

Hmm engine sounds a little drastic. I hope that a repairable solution pops up before I take a bat to this thing. I replaced the throttle positioning and Idle air control on the side of the throttle body today, didn't help. I was wondering if maybe the EGR Valve could be the problem?

Sometimes many people spend much money trying to fix the problem and then end up changing the engine anyway.

{Feel-bad-0002006A}

I'm so sorry But you already mentioned about everything that could be the cause:

No it's not the plugs/wires.
No it's not the coil pack.
No it's not the computer.
No it's not the ignition switch or safety switch.

I have a neon and have the SAME issue!

I haven't done it yet because my mechanic os on vacation, but someone told me that there is most likely moisture in the distributor cap and/ or the wiring.

This car does not have a distributor cap. There is a coil pack, which I have replaced but still no good. There is a known issue with the plug wires however I have changed those aswell. The wires very well could be your problem and is worth a try just make sure to change your spark plugs while your at it. Oh and a new o2 sensor wouldn't hurt either. Best of luck...

Daniel.

I know I am late in sending this reply to this post but I wanted to get this info on here for anyone that needs it in the future.

If your 95 - 99 Neon is hard to start, bogging down when you try to take off, backfiring and spitting and sputtering but you are still able to drive it and it does this on and off then you need to replace your fuel pump, period.

I ended up spending well over $400 trying to figure it out. Replaced the small stuff first then went up and up and up.
Air Filter
Spark plugs and wires
Fuel filter
PCV valve
O2 Sensor
etc....

Still did the same thing, finally broke down and bought the $200 pump. At first I was worried because when I started it it was doing the same thing, guess it took it a minute to figure out it had a new one!

Now it runs like a dream and I get about 40 miles to the gallon!!! With gax at $4 a gallon it's a very nice trade off for the money I spent working on it.

Just wanted to make someone else's life a little easier. And it is easy to change out. Just email me at yahoo if you have any questions. Be happy to help !

jennifer101430

Hello Jennifer, thank you for this. I hope it will help people facing the same problem. Indeed - sometimes it turns out cheaper to install the right parts straight from the beginning without trying to go through the cheaper parts first.

The fuel pump, fuel filter, and fuel rails are the very first things that we changed on My neon the reason that they wern't mentioned is because we had come to the conclusion that this was not a fuel problem. While this may very well be your problem as all of the symptoms do point to fuel don't be surprised if this is not your problem I hope it is and your problems are solved. If not and you have exausted all other suggestions listed througout this post and you still wish to go further I have more suggestions you could try that I didn't as I gave up, But you may want to check the cam positioning sensor or the cam it's self may be bad. Other posibility's but not as likely as the ones mentioned befor you could check temp and knock sensors and look for other signs and see if it might be a blown head gasket or a cracked block.