89 century, check engine light-loosing some power

Ok my first post here, be nice lol. I have a 1989 century that I love, it has 161,000 miles on it and runs great, just got back from a trip to Fla where it ran great the whole time there and back(mi-fla). So today Im driving home and all of sudden my CEL comes on and I loose power, my spedometer went from 50 to 30 and then shot back up. Its never done this before and Im at complete loss on this. It has a new water pump, the oil has been changed recently, all fluids are full and Im confused. 1. anyone know why or what this could be? and 2. Cost of repair?

TIA!!! and if you want you can email me or post it here, I will try to remember to look back on here. Thanks again!!!

Melissa

If the check engine light is on have it scanned at Autozone, they will do it for free and give you the codes stored in the computer. Once you have the codes post them here and someone should be able to help you determine what to do to fix the car.

Thanks I will stop by there tomorrow and find out. Thanks so much!

Well I called them and they said they cant do it because of the age of the car, that they only check 1996 and older...is this true?? or was he just BSing me??

Thanks!!

Your car has an OBD 1 computer that requires a different scanner than they must have at autozone. You will probably need to take it to a shop or dealer to get it checked. Of course they will charge you for connecting it to the scanner and will want to fix the problem for you. Good Luck!

You can always go to autozone and get the Haynes manuel and test it yourself. They go through detail on how to do it and give you what the codes mean.

Does this happen all the time or just once?
My 89 centrury sputtered today for the first time since I owned it. Gonna ignore it unless it happens again.
What do your sparks plugs look like?
You can always try a tune up to see if it goes away. Air, fuel filters, new plugs and wires.
Good luck.

Well the car ran find yesterday and only did it 2 times during my daily drive of 75miles(37miles one way to work), when I went to leave again last night the car wouldnt start. Im thinking it might be the distribitor coil, I had an 86 century that I remember doing almost the exact same thing. Lets hope and pray it is Im about to call the shop here in a bit to come get it to fix it.

If the car has a 12 pin ALDL connector, there are procedures for grounding the diagnoistic pin. 2 digit codes will blink on the check engine light.

http://www.autozone.com/servlet/UiBroker?ForwardPage=/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/0f/13/26/0900823d800f1326.jsp#hd1-1-8

links to autozones on line manuals. I have used this type of procedures on my 1990 and with the aid of a good Chiltons and a digital multimeter, find I can do much trouble shooting.