My sisters 2002 cavalier died on her while she was driving it last week. It was running hot then the engine died. She had it towed to her place. They tried starting it a few days later but it won't start. It does crank, but never turns over.

It has 180k miles on it.

My friend and I tried a few things tonight. He is much more mechaniclly inclined than I am. He knows a LOT about cars than I do. But I know some.....

We took the valve cover off and cranked it. The valves moved so the timing chain didn't snap. We disconnected the fuel rail and cranked it, and gas flowed, so it is getting gas. There is spark to the plugs, so that's not an issue.

Whatcha think we should try next? My friend forgot his compression tester, but we plan to do that this weekend.

Anything else we can try while we're in there? My friend called me and wrote a list of 5 or so things he'd like to try.


She doesn't want the car anymore and said if we get it running she will sign it over to me, free! I'm all about a freebie!

Any suggestions/help/advice?

Again, I know some things, but I have a lot to learn.

I should mentione, my friend thinks it is a blown head gasket.

He wants to take the head off (after checking other smaller things) and see what we find then.

check compression first and foremost, if you have spark and fuel it should fire, pending said compression is there. running it hot could have done some major damage in the motor as well. is it low on coolant? any coolant in the oil? several simple things to cover before you tear into the top end though. and at that point with a 180k motor you might find it cheaper, and simpler, to swap in a lower mileage junkyard motor for cheap.


Have a nice day.

No obvious sign of oil in coolant but we have to look closer.

Who knows for sure how long it was driven hot, she reallized it just before it shut off.


And I'll come back with compression results when I can.

Also, just because fuel is coming out doesn't mean it has enough pressure for the injectors. Do a fuel pressure check as well.

Same thing happened to my dads car this past weekend.
Turns out he let the car overheat blew the head and cracked his block... Now im trying to swap it over to a 2.2 ecotec out of my fiances wrecked sunfire