MG ZR Problem

united66

Hi folks. I am a regular poster on the money part of the forum, so just to say hi first!

I am asking for a little advice here if there are any mechanics etc around. I recently bought an 04 plate MG ZR 1.4. The car is fine apart from a few body work issues which I will sort. However the car is pulling/juddering/lacking in power in lower gears at around 2-4000 revs. The head gasket is OK as I've had it checked. Any ideas as to what can be causing this? The car drives fine after driving for half hour or so and at high gears/revs. Any suggestions?

gmm30

Has it been serviced recently-ish? Worn out spark plugs could give these symptoms (although plugs on a 2004 ZR should be good for 60,000 miles, assuming it's fitted with the proper platinum type).

Other than that, it could be a coil pack problem (there are 2 coil packs on top of the cylinder head, each supplying HT to 2 cylinders. Hard to diagnose a fault with them without replacing for new ones unfortunately.

I take it the engine management light isn't coming on when the car runs badly?

united66

Yes the engine light does flash. My brother has looked at the spark plugs and has recommended I get them replaced. He also cleaned another sensor near the engine which was dripping with rubbish, this has helped a bit but does still jump a little but not as much.