What's going on with my car?

Okay, I own a 1999 Olds Intrigue GX. It's an automatic with 123,000 miles.
Over the past few weeks, my car has been acting weird when it's shifting gears. Normally it has a great deal of pick-up and can zip around and increase speed easily and quickly.
But now, as soon as it starts shifting gears above 40 mph, it acts sluggish and weird. It SLOWLY picks up speed, even if I have it floored, and at times it will act as if it's going to stall out, though it never stalls out and dies. It's like trying to accelerate with a very weak 4-cylinder engine. Eventually it goes the speed I want and runs smoothly.
It only seems to be a major problem the first time I run the car during the day. If I've been going around for a while, it seems to have a lot of its pick-up revived.
This morning, it started "stalling" as I sped up to 50 mph and the "Check Engine" light started flashing and then stayed on. I have recently had all the fluids checked and just had the alternator, battery, and serpentine belt replaced in the past month. I had a tune-up a little over a year ago if I remember correctly (about 11,000 miles ago).
There has been no black smoke or any other smoke coming from my car.

I am currently unemployed and have already spent a fortune on repairs this month so if I could have help without someone telling me to go get the codes read, that would be great. Thanks!

Get those obd2 codes read. Cheapest thing you can do and some parts places do it for free.

Manually shift your car and keep it in 3rd. =did the problem go away? My vote is tcc/solenoid in this case.

Get those obd2 codes read. Cheapest thing you can do and some parts places do it for free.

Manually shift your car and keep it in 3rd. =did the problem go away? My vote is tcc/solenoid in this case.


Okay, got the code read, and it was P0300...i.e. multiple cylinder random misfire...or something along those lines.

The pcm is detecting what it percieves as multiple engine misfires, this can be caused by many things, low fuel preesure, bad plug wires, a full scan should done to look at misfire counts, do a fuel pressure test under the conditions this occurs.

The pcm is detecting what it percieves as multiple engine misfires, this can be caused by many things, low fuel preesure, bad plug wires, a full scan should done to look at misfire counts, do a fuel pressure test under the conditions this occurs.

Intrigues dont have plug wires. Another possibility is either a bad crank or cam sensor also can cause a misfire. Get the codes read once more just to see if either of those 2 codes comes up. Those are easy to fix.

on the first page of this intrigue forum do a search with your code. P0300 is about the most general code you can get = could be many things and getting a second code would be really helpful.

Since the forum header says this is aimed for 3800's I assumed the engine in question was just this, which has wires, maybe we need to hear what we are dealing with here, of course someone is going to jump on me saying a GX is not a 3800.

Well in 99 I believe the 3800 was the base engine with the 3.5 being optional, the GX is the lowest trim level so it might have the base engine no?

A good way to test the ignition system out is to put it under a high load at low rpms. Try chugging up a hill in 4th gear without downshifting or something like that.


But before we just start randomly naming off things, you should let us know which engine you have. Also, you can get codes read for free at any major auto parts store, so aside from gas, that shouldnt be expensive.

Agreed, chronic problem here in AF, lack of car/condition info.

with the p0300 thats a hard one to diagnose...but yes engine info is essential. obviously its misfiring on more than one cylinder...and more than two at that. the cumbustion triangle = air,fuel,and spark....