he has a tired engine that was ragged by its previous owner
it breaths quite heavy and it has a slight knocking noise
bottom end is tired, the x20xev's do suffer from bottom end problems and dont tend to last more than a 100k
i told him he can drive it for another 6 months like that and wont notice a difference, i had an engine like it and it took a good while before it started to give up
coolant temp sensor causes misfire under load as well on those engines
possible dispack failure, split ht lead, knackered spark plug