[Mark_]

New user, first post so bear with me

I bought a used 2015 Cherokee almost 2 years ago now, have had relatively good luck with it and my wife loves it. However, last week the wife called on her way home from work, car is sputtering, hesitating and feels like it won't go over 60. Checked it out that evening and confirmed, ESS light (A!) came on while driving. Scanned codes, found P0302, so naturally I assumed fouled plugs. Replaced plugs, ran some seafoam through the tank as well as through the intake and still getting the hesitation and rough idle, seems to be a little better but not by much. If you feather the gas, it barely will hesitate, but if you need to acelerate to get onto the highway it will sputter and cough and then go thru and move fine. Does not seem to be a trans issue as i can physically see the sputter with the hood open. Oh, and the battery was replaced less than 6 months ago!

HELP! I am a former mechanic, so I am good with my hands but I do not want to have to take it to the dealer if I can avoid it.


2015 Cherokee Latitude 3.2 V6
81,000 mi

Hey there, welcome to the forum

Ok... so a cylinder #2 misfire code. Not the first time we see this code from a forum member, though higher occurence on cylinder #3 (P0303). There are quite a few possibilities and you seem to know most/all of them :

• Bad plug. Check.
• Bad coil pack (each Pentastar cylinder has its own coil - you probably know that already).
• Bad injector.
• Vacuum leak.
• Roller rocker bearing failure (Pentastars are known for this issue, though not frequent).
• Valve seat problem (it happens with these engines too).

Switching cylinder #2 coil pack with another would be a quick way to rule out bad #2 coil.
Doing a compression test would indicate if there is a problem with the cylinder head...

I'm not a mechanic so I'll stop here. You can use the forum search feature with P0302 and/or P0303 : you'll find more threads for this problem.