[CREWZIN]

Bob,

I talk to to many people to remember all the problems and circumstances but looking at your picture it looks like an early model (2000-2001) PT. Here's something I found on PT Do-It-Yourself.net .......

We have an early 2001 LE PT with 135k miles. Recently we started to notice a power loss and had our repair shop take a look while performing scheduled maintenance. They suggested conducting a leak down test, which I'm not familiar with? Thank you for your help. - Vincent, from Maine.

A leak down or cylinder leakage test is used to find excessive wear in an engine. When a technician performs a leak down test each cylinder is tested to see how well it holds pressure. If a cylinder is unable to hold pressure, they can pinpoint which component of the cylinder (piston rings, valves, etc) is causing the pressure loss. An engine in great condition should generally show only a 5 to 10% pressure leak. An engine that's still in pretty good condition may show up to 20% leakage, but more than 30% leakage indicates a problem.

This test is often confused with a compression test, but is quite different. A compression test measures cylinder pressure (not pressure loss), but checks many engine components at the same time. A poor pressure reading can indicate so many things that it's hard to tell which component is at fault without a lot of other tests. A leak down test avoids this difficulty, although in some instances it can be used in conjunction with a compression test to diagnose other problems. For instance, if a cylinder is misfiring, but the compression is good and leakage is minimal, it could indicate a fuel delivery (bad injector) or ignition problem (fouled spark plug or bad plug wire).