power loss

I have a 2003 Saturn L200 and we have had some power loss problems. When the car is idling the tack bounces around and the car shakes. Almost like the car is not getting enough gas. Also with acceleration we have power loss. The car will not have full power, and it will shake. Sometimes it almost sounds like some small backfires. The light that looks like an engine is on, but when we have power problems the light blinks. The book said this is a sign of miss fire.

I have changed the fuel filter, put gas antifreeze and water remover in, drained the gas tank if we got bad gas, tried to find all vacuum hoses and check them, and took all spark plugs out and cleaned them. they did not look bad, but had some black suff (carbon deposit) on them, And none of these help. :banghead:


Had anyone else had this kind of problem? :cwm27:

this is a common problem with these cars.i cant remember what we do to fix it but give a lil bit.

You should post this in the Saturn forum for more respsonses.

Did you check the distributor and plug wires ?

You probably don't have a distributor but i found a TSB saying clogged injectors is a cause of all the symptoms you are describing. You can go to jiffy lube and they have a pretty good injector cleaner.

The dealer can do it too but they will charge an hour of diag and the probably .3 to .5 hrs to clean them. I would go to jiffy lube first. It's only like 30 dollars or something.

Admittedly JL's cleans from the outside (meaning the detergent goes around the outside of the injector) it wont be as good as the dealer (their's should clean the inside of the injector).

Good luck

Admittedly JL's cleans from the outside (meaning the detergent goes around the outside of the injector) it wont be as good as the dealer (their's should clean the inside of the injector).

So Jiffy Lube sprays off the exterior of the fuel injector? The part that you see while looking at it while it is still installed on the vehicle? That wouldn't do anything except make them look nice. There's only one path for the fuel to take on the inside, so there's only one way to clean them. A "dirty" fuel injector is one that is plugged or hanging open, not one that is covered in mud on the outside. The only cleaner I'm aware of is a canister that has a shop air inlet with a pressure regulator and a fuel hose. The cleaner inside the canister is pressurized by the shop air to the maximum fuel pressure spec for that car. The fuel pressure hose is then connected to the hose on the canister and the fuel return hose is blocked. The engine is then run and the cleaner goes through the injectors.

BG makes a product called 44K which is the best in tank fuel system cleaner. You dump it in the gas tank and it cleans the injectors as you drive. It's more expensive than anything else, but it works the best. Seafoam would also be a good product to try (less than half the price of 44K)

Of course that is assuming that dirty injectors are the cause.