I noticed this weekend that my 1999 Buick Century is developing the
classic symptons of Piston Slapping (ticking noise when cold ... goes
away as engine warms up).

Last night when leaving the office park lot, the engine begun miss
firing, and after about five minutes set the service engine soon lamp.
I took the car to autozone, and they read it with a code scanner. They
said that cylinder 6 was missing. The techy said all the other
cylinders were OK, it was only 6 that was missing.

The plugs, wires and ignition coils are original. The car has about
60,000 miles on it. I pulled the spark plug from cylinder 6 this
morning and it looked fine (no fouling), but the gap was just below
..080. Cyclinder 4 looked similiar. I also did an oil and filter change.
Car seem to run well this morning, with minimal slapping. No new codes
and no missing.

Is the Piston Slap likely to be the cause of the cyclinder miss? Or, do
I have two problems?

Any suggestions on how I should proceed would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,

Steve