97 olds Cutlass supreme any ideas? Please help.

Tiny
CHUCKY DEE
  • MEMBER
  • 1997 OLDSMOBILE
My 97 v6 160 hp olds has a little less then 130,000 miles on it. About 1,000 miles ago the check engine light came on. Then the car started to get bad throttle response. By this I mean you can put the petal mid way to the floor and nothing happens, you push it a little more and zoom rpms jump to 4000 from about 2000, car shifts down at five mainly because I let off the gas a little so I dont red line the engine then I slowly increase pressure applied to the gas petal and I get up to speed eventually. The car doesnt do this when I first start the car after its sat all night or for a while in a cool place. Then about the second stopsighn about 50 yards it starts. After sitting over night it has plenty of punch for a very limited time. Another thing that happens is when ever I turn on the fan the pitch of the engine changes to more of a wining noise. And the car does some sort of bucking action. There is also a tapping noise coming from the engine. And when I turn on the air/fan it blows out the dashboard vents for a while and then pressure is lost and it blows out at only the feet. I took it to a local garage they hooked it up to a diagnositic machine and it said the car was missing on all cylinders so they replaced the sparkplugs and all wires problem didnt get any better, I originally thought it was the transmission so I took it to the transmission doctors and they hooked the car up and said that the diagnoses was the same as before so I finally gave up and went to the GM retailor and asked them to take a look at it and they said I needed to replace my engine because they were not sure what was causing it and they garrunteed work done on the car and since they didnt know exactly what the problem was they didnt want to mess with it. O another thing if you lightly tap the accelerator it runs good up until about 2000 rpms in most gears. When the guys replaced my spark plugs the first time and it didnt fix the problem I gave them the go ahead to take the top part of the engine apart to see ifany gaskets were blown and things of that nature. They took it apart they said nope nothing wrong but when they put it back together they called me and said I had a broking ring. And I told them well it wasn't broken before you took it apart so that means that it was broken after the fact and you did it so you fix it. And so they did I think. And also the air filter has been changed and the oil filter and I always change my oil on or before its time. Could it be my timing chain?Another thing I noticed is the engine tends to be fine at spends above 65-70. And the problem became noticable a short while after I ran my gas tank to what I consider to be low (gas light was not on yet) so I put fuel injector cleaner in and I filled it up with premium and it didnt change much of anything except the weight of my checkbook. Speaking of gas the car tends to run alot better when the tank is full of gas, and the gas gauge stays at full for much longer then it should and once it starts to drop it appears that my gas mileage drops too. Alright know that you know absolutly everything I know how to explain could you hellp me?
Friday, May 5th, 2006 AT 5:05 PM

3 Replies

Tiny
LOSONE
  • MECHANIC
  • 1,616 POSTS
1. Have someone read out the engine code form the chack engine light

2. Shorten your post tofacts, it is hard to find out what is going on with an epistle
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Saturday, May 6th, 2006 AT 3:52 PM
Tiny
CHUCKY DEE
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Well I dont know what the problem is exactly so I dont want to leave out anything that could led to an improper assessment of the problem. But to break it down for you the car jerks when you try to excellerate and there is a knocking/tapping sound.
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Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 AT 4:24 PM
Tiny
LOSONE
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Most of the time a car that jerks when accelerating is an ignition break down either plugs, wires, distributer cap or rotor.

However when accompanied with a knocking tapping sound it might be a defective timing chain and gear because it sounds like the engine is out of time. In those engines they made the gear out of plastic and it wears out in about the mileage you have.

To Check it do the following.

Remove #1 plug. Rotate the engine until you hear compression on the cyl. Rock the engine gently back and forth until the cyl is TDC. Check your timing mark it should be close to TDC.

Put a long screw driver in the plug hole. It will rest on the cyl top..

Put a socket on the bottom pully. Gently rock it in both directions. If the timing chain is good there will be instant movement of the screwdriver. If you have to turn it a few degrees before the screwdrivwr moves then it is the timing gear and chain.

I hope this helps and it isn't as complicated as it sounds. Good luck
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Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 AT 5:12 PM

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