well i am @ it again 3 winters in a row and my car is in the shop yeah me
i will start @ the beginning (october 2008)
headed frome spokane to state line to save money on ciggerets
the engine drops rpm down while i am cruising down the interstate cruising @ 85mph limiting the engine to 4k rpm
not throwing any sort of code and seeing that the engine was capping out @ 4k rpm i eased off the way back and cruised @ 55mph the whole way back to spokane (60 or so mi round trip)
when i got back i stopped @ napa and picked up a new set of (double platinum) spark plugs, "plug wires"
while needing a car to get to and from work i kept the rpm around 2k on my way to work i have driven about 150mi or so since then
about 2 weeks ago i threw a code p0420 (or p0402 i cant remember) any ways it was an catalyst efficiency code
while i have put about 8 miles on since it flashed the code
then (i would say it was around the 12 or so we had a bad snow storm temprature around -12><subzero temps )
the car now has an issue with running
the first day it happened i started the car let it warm up for about 20 minutes and went on my way i made it about an 1/8 mile and the car died (i just filled up with gas the night before so i am pretty sure the car is not out of gas)
beings i was running late for work i pushed the car in to my land lords yard and got a ride to work when i got home from work the car started up immediately i drove it back home and parked it since i try to start it every morning and @ most the car runs for 30 minutes and dies
other than the cat being plugged, bad o2 sensor
what could be wrong
i have ruled out frozen fuel line as the car starts and runs
the plugs have less than
the car is a 97 cavalier z24 2.4 ld9 automatic (if that helps)
by the car dies i mean the rpms stutter i press on the gas pedal and the car chokes out
when i try to crank it back up it may or may not fire on @ least one cylinder then i get no firing of ank kind on any cylinder
Once you replace the cat, might not hurt to check the 02 sensor.
I've had similar issues with mine before. Mine is some how tied into the traction control sensor. My Trac Off light comes on while in drive and it wants to die, really low rpms on idle, and sometimes limits my rpms when I'm up near 75-80mph. I took it to the shop and they replaced the MAP sensor near the throttle body. Still happens on occasion, but not nearly as often.
mine idles right between 5 and 600, which i assume is normal for an automatic. The only time i've ever seen the trac light on mine, is when i am not on a smooth surface like on a back road somewhere or if i hit a pothole or something in the road it will trigger it. But even then it's only for maybe 10 seconds at most.
I'm having what appears to be the same problem or something very similar. It started for me about two weeks ago, coincidentally about the time the outdoor tempearture dropped way down around -25C. The car won't idle right but seems to run fine otherwise. At idle, the motor seems like it's missing and the rpm drops down around 200 - 300 and then comes back. At first it was intermittent but now it idles like that all the time. My son and mechanic have both experienced the car stalling but I haven't yet. Sometimes the TC light will come on while I'm sitting stopped and the motor is wanting to stall, but as soon as I start moving and get the rpm over 1000 or 1200 the light goes off and the traction control works fine and the motor smooths out. I haven't had the motor revved up so I don't know if it's limiting the revs or not. The highways are way too icy right now for me to try that. I have seen the service engine light come on twice. The first time was last Thursday, the engine performance had deteriorated to the point where it was missing/sputtering even when moving so I took it to my mechanic. He replaced the plugs and wires and cleaned something out, I'm not sure what because he dropped the car off on Saturday when I wasn't home and I haven't talked to him yet today. The car runs better than it was but still isn't right. Yesterday the service engine light came on but this morning when I started it the light was off and hasn't come back on yet. Yesterday I put some injector cleaner in the gas tank and then drove the car for almost two hundred miles to see if that would do anything but it's still the same. I wondered about bad fuel so I'm going to run the tank out today and fill up again. I'm not sure why a rough engine would cause the "traction control off" light to turn on, that really has me puzzled.
MAp is a good pick, try that, they are not too much, especialy at a junk yard!
Fireboy153
Brady Fire Co. - Station 150
Long Live The Sunflower! (yea its not so "cool")
The fix for me was new plugs and replacing the coil pack. Car is running great now.
