Any idea what happened to my Mazda Tribute ...?

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answerguru

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Any idea what happened to my Mazda Tribute ...?
I was driving along and I hear this POP and then it sounded as if there was no exhaust on the vehicle. I tried looking under the hood but it is impossible to see anything. I checked the tail pipe and there is what seems like normal exhaust coming out (no moisture etc). The engine is running very rough and although it is still running there is a terrible vibration when going down the road and if I lift my foot from the gas pedal and then accelerate again it seems to run smooth again but still very loud. Any ideas what may have happened? All the fluids are full etc.No smoking or any strange signs other than the loud exhaust type sound and rough running. It is a 2002 with 3.0L V/6, auto. trans. and has about 100K miles. It is actually a darn good vehicle before
 
As Clayton says, it could be the "doughnut" gasket between the exhaust manifold and pipe. However, I once had this happen to me while driving a BMW 2002 and found that a spark plug had somehow unthreaded itself and backed completely out of the cylinder head. Firing on only 3 of its 4 cylinders, it ran very rough, and since it now had another exhaust port (although expelling an unignited fuel/air charge), very loudly as well.
 
Off hand check the exhaust gasket those can blow out suddenly and cause a load exhaust and loss of back pressure.

The "loud pop" is a concern but it could be a backfire(that would cause the gasket to blow out).
The running rough could be due to a bad coil/coil pack or other spark issue. The best thing I can tell you to do is rent a tester(or go down to the dealership and have it tested) before you start replacing good parts.

Goodluck
 
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