'99 forester -- shaking while stopped?

[Kira]

I've had my forester for about a year and I'm absolutely in love with it. It's a manual transmission, has about 80,000 miles, and I haven't had a single problem with it. It's had all of its regular maintenance and just had its last "check up" no more than a month ago.

 

Today I drove it to a Dr.'s appointment about half an hour away, didn't notice anything wrong while I was moving, but when I stopped at a light about a block away from his office I felt the car start to shake. It did it both in gear and in neutral, and was significant enough that I could feel the shaking, see the hood shaking in front of me, and also see the gearshift throbbing much more than normal. When I tried to accelerate, it felt completely powerless and then all of the sudden I got a burst of power. Made it to the Dr.'s and he was nice enough to look at it for me. He said it looked like "one of the cylinders wasn't firing right" or "something was missing" but said it shouldn't die on me and I would make it home. I made it home fine.

 

Nothing feels wrong while I'm moving, and it didn't even feel particularly underpowered except for that first time in 1st gear. Just whenever the car's stopped it shakes and vibrates like crazy. Being a 17 year old girl who knows practically nothing about cars, I have no idea what's really wrong. Talked to one knowledgeable friend over the phone who said it sounded like it might be a transmission problem, but he couldn't really diagnose from my description.

 

All my family and most of my friends are out of town right now, so any advice you could give me would be great. I don't plan to drive it again until I hear from someone that it for sure is ok to drive or until I take it in to a mechanic. Thanks, and I'm just hoping there isn't anything serious wrong with my perfect car .

[Nug]

The likelyhood that there is something seriously wrong is very, very slim.

 

What you are feeling is a cylinder misfiring. It's runnin' on three instead of four. Several different things can cause this. The most common reasons are a bad spark plug wire, a fouled spark plug, or an ignition coil going bad.

 

That burst of power you felt was the cylinder firing normally. The fact that it was "missing" and then running normally again points a finger (in my experience, anyway) toward the three reasons above.

 

The car is OK to drive to a mechanic. What I would do is drive to your nearest Auto parts store, buy a set of spark plug wires, and put them on in the parking lot. Your mechanic will surely want to replace these anyway, so might as well do it yourself, and if they turn out to be the problem, then you just saved a few bucks. If you just want to take it somewhere and have it fixed, that's fine too. There is probably nothing seriously wrong with it.