Car Trouble

Kitsuna

Something's wrong with my car. It's a Mk 4 1998 Ford Fiesta Finesse.

What's happening is that I'm not getting as much acceleration as I normally would whenever I push down on the accelerator. It's not all really that noticeable on flat ground, but it is noticeable whenever I go up a hill. There's also a hissing sound that sounds like escaping air coming from behind the passenger side dashboard. I only hear it when I'm accelerating and the car is in gear. The engine also isn't struggling or sounding out of the ordinary.

My father-in-law thinks it might be a problem with either the exhaust system or something to do with the gaskets. I've got a friend who deals with my car repairs, but I'm not going to be able to get hold of him until Tuesday at the earliest.

Since my sum knowledge of cars basically amounts to the fact that they have four wheels and get me from A to B, I'm hoping that there's somebody here who'll be able to give me a decent guess at what the problem is and - more importantly:
A) Whether I'm badly damaging my car by driving it whilst it's like this.
How much it's going to cost me to get it fixed?

Any help would be appreciated.

japan

Gut feeling is that it is the vacuum hose. It's only rubber and they tend to perish and start leaking, which is a bugger for any mechanic to diagnose.

On the plus side the part itself is less than a tenner.

BlochWave

I wouldn't drive anywhere where it would be a disaster for the engine to stop working. I was having acceleration problems once that culminated in my engine deciding it was done for the day while I was on an interstate. That was ultimately an ignition system problem, which I don't think your problem is (your engine isn't running rough and you have that hissing sound) but do remember that when you drive the car knowing something isn't what it's sposed to be, you've become an unpaid test driver for Ford ^_^

I am by no means a mechanic, but based on my google-knowledge, I wouldn't bet against the second poster: http://www.aa1car.com/library/vacleak.htm

eternalbl

If you're adventurous, you could try checking it out yourself for a vacuum leak. Considering you hear it through the dash it would probably be pretty evident if you checked under the hood with the car running, as long as it also makes the noise when you have the car in park and hit the gas.

Just put the car in park, e brake on, go to the engine and you'll see a cable connected to a pivot. Push that guy and the car will rev up, and the noise'll happen. If it's in the engine compartment try to hunt it down if it's obviously at the top. If you find the hose that's causing the problem you could head to a Ford dealer for an OEM replacement or probably go to lordco, napa, or autozone to get some generic hose to use.

Kitsuna

eternalbl wrote: »

If you're adventurous, you could try checking it out yourself for a vacuum leak. Considering you hear it through the dash it would probably be pretty evident if you checked under the hood with the car running, as long as it also makes the noise when you have the car in park and hit the gas.

Unfortunately, it doesn't happen when I rev the car in neutral. It's only when the car is in gear and accelerating. If I push down on the accelerator when it's in neutral, the engine just revs normally and I don't hear the sound.

Anyway, thanks to all of you for the help so far. I'll cross my fingers and hope that you guys are right about it being a problem with the vacuum hose, if only because it doesn't sound like it'll cost me a small fortune to get it sorted.

Now that I've got a notion of what to look for, I'll lift up the bonnet tomorrow morning and see if I can't spot whether anything looks amiss. Hopefully I'll get lucky. I'll let you know whether I find anything.

Kitsuna

Well, I've had a good look under the bonnet and I can't see anything that looks obviously wrong. All the hoses and such seem to be okay from what I can see.

I'll have my mate check out whether it's a vacuum hose problem first of all when I finally get to him. Thanks for the help.