Engine Performance problem
1997 Chevy Cavalier 4 cyl Two Wheel Drive Automatic 95000 miles
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My daughter has this vehicle at college. After driving 150 miles she stopped and shutoff car.Then came back out and drove about a block and car quit. Tried to start (it turned over but no start) She said that she had a 1/4 tank of gas. I told her to put in at least a couple of gallons to make sure there was gas in it. After her and friend did this they didn't try to start immediately,food was more important, came back in 20 minutes tried it and it started. No problems for couple of weeks driving almost every day. Then she said she would start it and it would want to kill but kept on gving it gas and after a while it would start to sound normal then she would procede. She came back home and I took it to my mechnic at local car shop.They ran different tests and of course could not duplicate problem thye changed oil and fuel filter and ran alternator load test
but since it would malfunction they did'nt suggest replacing the fuel pump. Is there something else that could be a place to look...A friend said maybe its the oxygen sensor another said something about a emc or emg fuse or relay. The other day she drove it from work 2 blocks to get coffee worked fine drove it 5 minutes later and it died.Pushed it into parking lot finished her work shift and came out and it started and drove home just fine. I'm 150 miles away and can't just pop in and check stuff out. Thanks for any help!

you basically need to check it when the problem occurs. check fuel pressure, spark, injector pulse. do you know if it sets a check engine light?

the answer is both yes and no. the first time the check engine light stayed on for about 2 weeks.The next time all idiot lights were off. when it went to shop and they checked it out all lights off course were off.

rhall77 wrote:

you basically need to check it when the problem occurs. check fuel pressure, spark, injector pulse. do you know if it sets a check engine light?

they should of still been able to get a code out of the system

rhall77 wrote:

they should of still been able to get a code out of the system

guess what? it died again on her today. It is now towed to the mechanic and he will look at it in the morning.I am going to call him before starts to operate as the last conversation him and I had was that it is the fuel pump. I am afraid that when he puts his code analizer on that since it has sat all night that the car will start and he will replace the fuel pump and the problem will not have been fixed. The mechanic that looked at it here where I live said that if it was him he would start at looking or replacing the crankshaft position sensor first,since it kind of sounds as if there is a crack somewhere and when the engine gets hot the crack expands. This sounds more logical to me. How about you?

it very well could be, but i would still like to know the code that the mechanic gets.