Reasons Your Car Jerks While Acceleration

A smooth sailing car ride is every car-owners dream. But what if your car jerks every time you hit the gas pedal?

Jerks while driving a car can degrade your driving experience and often indicates a problem that needs to be sorted right away. Here are 5 common reasons your car jerks while acceleration and ways to fix them.

Dirty Fuel Injectors

The purpose of fuel injectors is to continuously deliver fuel into the engine cylinder for smooth functioning. However, these injectors can get dirty due to carbon buildup and cause engine misfires. As a result, it reduces fuel efficiency and makes your car jerk while accelerating.

Luckily, cleaning fuel injectors isn’t rocket science. Using a suitable fuel injector cleaner can easily remove the carbon buildup. At times, the carbon buildup in injectors can get so extreme that even injector cleaners are unable to clean it. In this case, you can clean the sludge manually or simply replace the injectors.

Blocked Catalytic Converter

A catalytic converter is responsible for reducing harmful emissions and pollutants coming out of the car. There are multiple reasons why your catalytic converter is clogged, including oil and unburnt fuel entering the exhaust system or rich fuel mixture.

Its blockage results in reduced fuel efficiency, slow acceleration and emission of pollutants. You may also see your ‘check engine light’ on. Therefore, it is crucial to unclog the converter.

For minor clogging, a catalytic converter cleaner may do the job. But for most cases, we advise you to get it unclogged at an auto-repair shop.

Dirty Air Filter

Another common reason for car jerks is dirty air filters. As the name suggests, the role of an air filter is to ensure that no dust, debris, insects or any other particle enters the engine. It also maintains a good flow of air and fuel for optimum performance.

Since its role is to filter the unwanted material, it gets dirty from time to time and needs to be changed. If not, its filtration will be affected and will cause dirt and material buildup in the engine resulting in poor engine performance.

Faulty Spark Plugs

Spark plugs are the underrated heroes of your car’s anatomy. They are responsible for a good spark that initiates the combustion and gets your engine started. If not changed over time, spark plugs can get faulty, resulting in improper fuel combustion, reduced fuel efficiency and the infamous car jerks.

Fortunately, replacing your spark plugs is easy and inexpensive. So if you haven’t changed your plugs in a long time, it’s best to replace them right away to avoid a costlier problem.

Faulty Airflow Sensor

Airflow sensors determine the amount of air entering the engine and transfer the information to the car’s computer. Depending on the fuel mix, the computer controls the amount of fuel to be delivered to the engine for proper combustion.

A faulty sensor may not detect the air composition, causing the faulty chain of events in the process. It often results in your car jerking forward, especially at a higher speed. Luckily, a faulty engine process will turn on your car’s ‘check engine light’ so you can get it fixed to avoid further damage.

Experiencing jerks while accelerating your car may require hefty repair like in case of engine damage or can be fixed with a simple replacement like spark plugs. Nevertheless, the key to avoiding any engine issues is to get it serviced from time to time. This way, nothing will stop you from a smooth and efficient car ride. Check out Tserv car services page and keep your car updated.

Contact us to know details about possible Reasons Your Car Jerks While Accelerating.