1994 sunbird le

OK, here's the deal. My car starts and idles fine, but when I give it gas, wether it's in drive or not, it wants to bog down and stall out unless I put it in N or Park and rev the engine until it stops bogging. Then it will idle just fine again. The check engine light doesn't come on at all either. Anyone have any suggestions? I need this car ASAP.

Pull out a couple of spark plugs and look to see if it might be running rich... does the car blow any black smoke out the exhaust when it does this?

I pulled a spark plug and found that the car is running rich. There is no black smoke coming out of it.

Safe bet that the bogging is because of being rich.. now, it could be rich for a couple of reasons:

1: Faulty Oxygen sensor sending incorrect "lean" readings to the ECM causing the ECM to compensate with more gas.

2: Bad TPS sending incorrect throttle position.

3: Bad plugs or wires not delivering "hot" enough spark, could also be a bad coil pack, but since the Ignition module and coil pack are one unit on this car... you better hope that's not the cause ($375).

Bad Fuel injecors could cause it, but the chance of all of them failing at the same time is remote.


My old 94 Bird had a bogging prob. after running a tank of bad gas... after 3 clean tanks, it was still there. New plugs solved the prob.

If its been awhile since you've replaced the plugs & wires, I'd start there since a bad sensor would likley cause the Check engine light to come on... unless you have a bad ECM.

new plugs would be a nice and cheap way to eliminate a potential thing.

on a side note.... do you have a Temp. Light or gauge.. If you have a gauge, does it seem to be running warm ??

I have no problems with the temp gauge. It's running cool. The person I got the car from said it's been at least 17,000 miles since the plugs and wires had been changed. I know that it's approx. 500 miles overdue for an oil change.