Greetings,
My brother-in-law has an 03' Cavalier 2.2 Ecotec with 144k miles. He keeps routine maintenance and the car runs great.
It however is having ignition problems seemingly when it is misty out. Rainstorm? starts right up. Sunny? Not a problem. Cool and misty out (think like heavy fog) and it will turn over, but not start; no fuel pump priming sound, no ignition lights, nothing. Just turns and turns and turns.
It has had this problem for some time now, but seems to have gotten a lot worse recently and we're not sure why.
He had replaced the ignition switch some time ago, but that didn't seem to fix anything. I have google'd this problem, and it seems no one has an answer. You guys have been great before with my 87' Skyhawk, so I'm hoping you all can provide some info into this problem.
The car DID originally have a passive alarm installed when he got the car (put key in, turn to ignition and wait X seconds before starting), but he had the dealership cut it out. If you look under the dash, you can see where the wires were butt-connected back together. The butt-connection is still good (I pulled on it, and nothing came loose). Not sure if this would have anything to do with it, but as it was intertwined with the ignition, I feel that it could be an issue, but the car has ran fine for over 100k miles w/o it.
Does anyone know what might cause the ignition to fail on cool misty days?
Thank you for your time!
-Will
Old thread, I know, but in case it helps ....
On our '03 Cavalier, I discovered this sort of situation years ago after replacing the fuel pump (which bench-tested bad intermittently, IIRC). After replacing the fuel pump, I found that the car ran fine most of the time, but sometimes the fuel pump refused to run, usually in very humid conditions. I discovered that the big oblong accordian-looking grommet (if that is the correct word) at the bulkhead plug going to the fuel pump was MISSING. It never turned up, so I have no idea whether I lost it while working on the fuel pump or if it had somehow disappeared before that time. I was not able to discover how to get a new (or used) grommet without paying ~$50 for a whole new body-to-tank wiring harness, which I was unwilling to do at the time, so I ended up making my own grommet out of greased rings cut from a bicycle inner tube.
My own intermittent no-start situation seems to have recurred, this time when temperatures dropped following a damp spell, so I'm planning to inspect the homemade grommet situation as soon as I'm able.
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2003 Cavalier, base with auto/tilt/CD/AC (wife's) -- 2012 Mazda5 Touring with audio package (mine)
