SubversionX
10+ Year Contributor
- 241
- 7
- Jan 8, 2010
-
Virginia Beach,
Virginia
So, I'm going to take a stab at this, as I'm out on deployment right now. I can only go off of how my car was acting as of May, and try to figure what might be going wrong with my car from there.
I took my car to a few reputable mechanics who did some work here and there, trying to find what might be going on with my car, but with no joy. So, I'm just going to give you a rundown as to what has happened to my car within the past six months, and what I theorize may be the cause and what I'm trying to do now.
The evening I bought the car, I was driving home, and about half way back, the engine started stuttering at about 4000 RPM's like it had hit its rev limit, and then the whole car started shaking violently. So, me being scared out of my pajamas, pushed it the rest of the way home and into the driveway. I called the previous owner who really didn't have anything to say about it. He never really drove it to begin with, except to show me a test ride in it, when it worked perfectly. My stomache churns.
So, next time I tried starting it up, the engine wouldn't turn over and the lights flickered until it died. After getting a successful jump from my truck, I watch the RPM's jump from 100 to 1000 to 100... back and forth until it falls to 0 and dies. So, I initially thought maybe it was running rich and my spark plugs were bad. Sure enough, they were completely blackened. I replaced them with some new ones, flushed out my fuel system, and cleaned my injectors. The engine started up fine for a little while, and I could smell and see the exhaust being rich, before it eventually struggled to survive, dropped to 0, and died again. I have an A/F gauge, but it isn't working [I later realized later this may have been something I should have prioritized] I went to look at my throttle bleed screw, but the entire top has been mashed and destroyed beyond any use, and when I checked my timing gears, they were a few degrees off. So, I recalibrated my tears, cleaned my spark plugs, and tried some minor tuning on the AFC Neo.
SHAZAM! Finally accelerates up to 8000 rpms! then when I let off the gas, it drops down to zero and dies. My throttle response is completely off. it takes about a full second after I press the gas, for it to accelerate at all. So, for the time being i tried to loophole around this one. For about an entire week, I drove everywhere using BOTH OF MY FEET TO BREAK, CLUTCH, AND GAS. If I had to stop at a stop sign, I would pop into neuteral, while keeping my right foot on the gas to keep it going at about 2000 rpms (this can be kind of tricky), while keeping my left foot on the break.
This went fine until one day, I got kind of trapped on the on-ramp and had to WOT to get a space, when I heard a "KAPOW!!!" from my engine. My heart ultimately sank. To this day, I still have no idea what happened and haven't found anything. When I took my exit, I was in the middle of a four lane intersection. When the light turned green and I tried accelerating, the whole car just died. Right there in the middle of a four-lane intersection during rush hour. So, some homeless guy on a bike stopped everyone from moving, and helped me push my car across and all th eway to a parking lot. I had to call my sister to get her Toyota Echo to jump start me. So, after I was able to drive it back to my house, I let it sit in my driveway and whine about it for a few days. I had the whole thing tuned up, vacuum checked, and all sorts of other things by several mechanics who can't figure out why it's idling the way it does, or what went "KAPOW" on the interstate. I just put in a new alternator and battery, and I THINK i checked all my grounds, so I'm not certain why my car died in the middle of the interstate. It still has issues holding a good charge.
So, on another test drive, after I thought I had tackled it at some point, I noticed the engine temp was getting a little warm. And then a lot warm, and then I pulled over and saw there was steam coming out of my hood. Popped the hood, there was coolant everywhere and everything was hissing and I hated my car more than ever. So I had it towed to my house; found that I had blown my heater and coolant tubing, as well as my thermostat housing and other misc. cooling components. FML right? So I threw more money at my car, and now I'm back to where I started with.
My car idles like crap, has a bad throttle response, and I'm deployed so can't even work on it. I'm paying a new mechanic some $800 to put in a WBO2 sensor in, along with some NGK Laser sparky plugs, having the grounding looked at, getting the AFC Neo tuned, my gauge fixed, throttle body replaced, and bla. Hopefully it works by the time I get back but there's no telling from here. Anyways, there's not a lot I can do about it right now, I just wanted to hear some suggestions as to what you think may be causing my car to hate me.
Sorry this got so long to read, and thanks for all your help!
P.S. I named my car "Belladonna" after the adult actress. I found that it translates to meaning "Deadly Nightshad" which I think I may change before my car literally kills me.
I took my car to a few reputable mechanics who did some work here and there, trying to find what might be going on with my car, but with no joy. So, I'm just going to give you a rundown as to what has happened to my car within the past six months, and what I theorize may be the cause and what I'm trying to do now.
The evening I bought the car, I was driving home, and about half way back, the engine started stuttering at about 4000 RPM's like it had hit its rev limit, and then the whole car started shaking violently. So, me being scared out of my pajamas, pushed it the rest of the way home and into the driveway. I called the previous owner who really didn't have anything to say about it. He never really drove it to begin with, except to show me a test ride in it, when it worked perfectly. My stomache churns.
So, next time I tried starting it up, the engine wouldn't turn over and the lights flickered until it died. After getting a successful jump from my truck, I watch the RPM's jump from 100 to 1000 to 100... back and forth until it falls to 0 and dies. So, I initially thought maybe it was running rich and my spark plugs were bad. Sure enough, they were completely blackened. I replaced them with some new ones, flushed out my fuel system, and cleaned my injectors. The engine started up fine for a little while, and I could smell and see the exhaust being rich, before it eventually struggled to survive, dropped to 0, and died again. I have an A/F gauge, but it isn't working [I later realized later this may have been something I should have prioritized] I went to look at my throttle bleed screw, but the entire top has been mashed and destroyed beyond any use, and when I checked my timing gears, they were a few degrees off. So, I recalibrated my tears, cleaned my spark plugs, and tried some minor tuning on the AFC Neo.
SHAZAM! Finally accelerates up to 8000 rpms! then when I let off the gas, it drops down to zero and dies. My throttle response is completely off. it takes about a full second after I press the gas, for it to accelerate at all. So, for the time being i tried to loophole around this one. For about an entire week, I drove everywhere using BOTH OF MY FEET TO BREAK, CLUTCH, AND GAS. If I had to stop at a stop sign, I would pop into neuteral, while keeping my right foot on the gas to keep it going at about 2000 rpms (this can be kind of tricky), while keeping my left foot on the break.
This went fine until one day, I got kind of trapped on the on-ramp and had to WOT to get a space, when I heard a "KAPOW!!!" from my engine. My heart ultimately sank. To this day, I still have no idea what happened and haven't found anything. When I took my exit, I was in the middle of a four lane intersection. When the light turned green and I tried accelerating, the whole car just died. Right there in the middle of a four-lane intersection during rush hour. So, some homeless guy on a bike stopped everyone from moving, and helped me push my car across and all th eway to a parking lot. I had to call my sister to get her Toyota Echo to jump start me. So, after I was able to drive it back to my house, I let it sit in my driveway and whine about it for a few days. I had the whole thing tuned up, vacuum checked, and all sorts of other things by several mechanics who can't figure out why it's idling the way it does, or what went "KAPOW" on the interstate. I just put in a new alternator and battery, and I THINK i checked all my grounds, so I'm not certain why my car died in the middle of the interstate. It still has issues holding a good charge.
So, on another test drive, after I thought I had tackled it at some point, I noticed the engine temp was getting a little warm. And then a lot warm, and then I pulled over and saw there was steam coming out of my hood. Popped the hood, there was coolant everywhere and everything was hissing and I hated my car more than ever. So I had it towed to my house; found that I had blown my heater and coolant tubing, as well as my thermostat housing and other misc. cooling components. FML right? So I threw more money at my car, and now I'm back to where I started with.
My car idles like crap, has a bad throttle response, and I'm deployed so can't even work on it. I'm paying a new mechanic some $800 to put in a WBO2 sensor in, along with some NGK Laser sparky plugs, having the grounding looked at, getting the AFC Neo tuned, my gauge fixed, throttle body replaced, and bla. Hopefully it works by the time I get back but there's no telling from here. Anyways, there's not a lot I can do about it right now, I just wanted to hear some suggestions as to what you think may be causing my car to hate me.
Sorry this got so long to read, and thanks for all your help!
P.S. I named my car "Belladonna" after the adult actress. I found that it translates to meaning "Deadly Nightshad" which I think I may change before my car literally kills me.
