Possible bad motor/transmission mounts?

[Vengence]

Little back story first.......

Bought my LX used back in December and I knew it had some issues.....

2 days after buying it, the lower motor mount was replaced.

1 week after buying it I had some knocking going on some parts of the suspension were replaced. Bushings, control arm and one other part I can't remember.

January it kept misfiring and turned out to be a Bent/Burnt Valve in Cylinder #2 which all 16 valves were replaced and the whole engine/head gasket were resurfaced/cleaned. Timing Belt and Water Pump as well as other components were replaced with a kit for the timing belt replacement.

Currently, everything runs fine and smooth except for a few things which I think are revolving around the other 2 Motor Mounts and possibly the transmission mount.

#1. Sometimes on idle the engine feels a bit rough and can sometimes feel a vibration that comes up for about a second and goes away and comes back and goes away continuously. Hard to explain but it feels like the vibration is light and gets worse for that 1 second, goes away for a second and comes back.

#2. When accelerating, I can feel the engine/car vibrating and also vibrates a little right before it shifts.

#3. Sometimes, and by this I mean once or twice a day driving it, it shifts a bit hard from 3rd to 4th. or 2nd to 3rd. Havent paid much attention to it because I thought it was because the engine was cold. (25-35 degree temps outside)

#4. Excessive vibration at 55-60MPH followed by a light vibration after that. Between 55-60MPH the vibration is enough to where the whole car shakes a bit and after 60MPH, the vibration is felt only in the wheel and gas pedal. (Gas pedal is very slight though)

Any thoughts on this? Could it be the top and center mounts? Tranny mount?

I have also read that if it is the mounts that the car may move left or right but I have not noticed this mainly because my hands have always been on the wheel. Have not done any diagnostics myself yet as I am away from home until tomorrow or Tuesday.

[NitroPT]

You can have a combination of things that may be problematic.

Check at least these.

Check All 3 engine mounts
Check Transmission mount
Check All Drive Axles
Check Compression of cylinder 5 cycle only per cylinder cold
Check engine idle with vacuum gauge
Check tire wear
Check 4 wheel alignment
Check tire/wheel balance
Check tire air pressure
Check LCA's
Check for DTCs pending with a diagnostic scanning tool
Check for ATX codes. (must be done at a shop)
Check transmission fluid

[Vengence]

Check All 3 engine mounts - Lower was replaced last december- will check other 2
Check Transmission mount- will check
Check All Drive Axles- Axles were checked- All good.
Check Compression of cylinder 5 cycle only per cylinder cold - Everything was resurfaced and compression was checked in all cylinders and all was good then. (Last Month) Unless this process is different?
Check engine idle with vacuum gauge- will check
Check tire wear- Brand New MasterCraft Glacier 2 tires x4. (Installed in January)
Check 4 wheel alignment- Done in January
Check tire/wheel balance- Done in January with new tires and checked last week
Check tire air pressure- All at recommended levels and no TPM indicator on dash
Check LCA's- Not sure what LCA's are
Check for DTCs pending with a diagnostic scanning tool- will check
Check for ATX codes. (must be done at a shop)- will check
Check transmission fluid- this and all fluids were flushed and changed after buying the PT.

[pasadenahotrod03Dreamer]

LCAs are lower control arms. The rear bushing often deteriorates and affects handling and suspension.

[Vengence]

LCA's and Bushings were replaced back in January according to Mechanic Receipts.

[ptcruisersteve]

I would suggest besides all the great suggestions in the posts above to double check to make sure all spark plugs are working properly. Check for proper gap and defects. Some members have found cracks in the spark plugs and also huge gaps of .095 causing vibrations.

If the spark plugs are okay I would suggest jacking up the front of the PT Cruiser and check the wheel bearings. When they start to go bad they start vibrating at high speeds and gradually start vibrating at lower speeds.

[NitroPT]

You can visually look at the drive axles but to accurately check them the PT Cruiser should be up on a rack front suspension hung and a helper start the engine and place in gear. Watch listen and evaluate. Even so without being able to load them while testing sometimes it is hard to access a bad axle until it has been removed and the boots removed and joint inspected.
An inner joint can cause a Gremlen of an acceleration vibration only intermittent vibration unlike the tradition clacking of the out joint when turning.
Alignment has no estimated time to be true. Although I dont think it is the problem dont over look it. If the alignment was out it could have worn a bad pattern on the tread which can drive a inexperienced Technician crazy sometimes looking for vibrations, shimmies and noises.
Look carefully at the out edges of the tires and see if there is any signs of cupping.
If the mounts were not installed exactly as per FSM one may have gone bad. Hopefully the lower right engine mount ok. The struts are easy to replace had one or both failed.

[Vengence]

Spark Plugs and Spark Plugs wires were replaced in January as well. That was our original assumption with the Cylinder #2 Misfire. Will check those again again though.

Wheel bearing.....Never even thought of that being a possibility. Thank You. I will look into that as well now.

[magoo28630]

just a thought but have you given any thout to the measurment after replacing the mounts I think its 119mm or 4.7 inches . Please correct me if i"m wrong. I'm just a beginner. when it comes to pt's.
magoo

[Vengence]

Alright guys, I did some looking at the motor mounts. Center and Upper Mounts. Lower was replaced in December 2016.

From my eyes, I believe the Upper is bad and the Center is just destroyed. imo. But, again, I have never seen or replaced a motor mount until now. None of the PT's I owned before ever needed motor/tranny mounts replaced. So, this is based solely on what I can see. Here are some youtube videos of the Center and Upper Motor Mount. Sorry I do not know how to make the video play in the post, so the video links are below.

Center Motor Mount- Give it a few seconds to focus, I had to touch an area to get it to focus.
https://youtu.be/JYWkFKcROFQ

Upper Motor Mount- Took me a few seconds to get it into place, note- you wont be able to see the whole mount, just one side.
https://youtu.be/-ctsblMNx0o


Please let me know your thoughts/analysis on the videos if you can make anything of them.

Thank You.