loose sparks causing bad compression?

[happyclown]

So my car's been getting worse and worse at starting, the other day it would not start at all, i ended up cranking the starter so much that it started to smoke (it was cranking really slow) So i left for about 2 hours, i came back and the car started fine... My first thoughts were battery wasnt giving enough charge?! so when it cooled down it did...?

Then today my girlfriend took the car, it started fine all day till about 3 in the afternoon. Then it wouldnt start. I went down with a friend to go see if we could start it, and this time it was cranking nice and fast, but not starting. He noticed that my plug wires were wiggling alot more than normal, so we tightened the plugs down and got it to start.

My friend tells me that because the plugs were lose and wiggling a bit the piston had low compression.

Does that sound right to anyone else:?:


Thanks for any input!

[mitmaks]

ya that would cause low compression, kinda dangerous too. I once had loose spark plug on lawn mower and that sucker shot like a bullet and hit something, glad it wasnt person.

[neutral]

Technically, it's not the piston but the cylinder that will have low compression but that's probably what your friend meant. Yea, a loose plug's gonna provide a way for the air/fuel mixture to leak out around the plug threads on the piston's compression stroke = low compression.