1997 Grand Prix is Stalling

[mercinary]

My wife's car is stalling while she drives. The dealership says that no codes are being registered, so they tried to get me to do a bunch of pricey work (guessing at the problem).

We had ignition problems with a loose fuse recently. Can a loose fuse also cause stalling?

The problem happens when the engine is cold I believe.

-Merc

[notladstyle@yahoo.]

Originally Posted by mercinary

My wife's car is stalling while she drives. The dealership says that no codes are being registered, so they tried to get me to do a bunch of pricey work (guessing at the problem).

We had ignition problems with a loose fuse recently. Can a loose fuse also cause stalling?

The problem happens when the engine is cold I believe.

-Merc

if you take out the "when cold" part I would tell you to check *all* the fuses in car & out if you have had problems before. I have a lame lil ecm fuse leave my gp tarped for 3 months before I had time to trace the prob...

[GTPWarrior]

Does it stall when she drives the car on the road, does rpm guage fluctuate, hard to turn over? What it sound like if the above symptoms are ever there is a cps. won't return codes and makes the mechanichs scratch their heads.

Yes a loose fuse or even a old fuse can also very well do it. But in my experience they usually blow after a coupl of time. Same with old relays

[mercinary]

Well, We got the car back from the dealer a couple of days ago. They found that there were no codes being popped up. They couldn't figure out what was wrong, but they wanted to do a bunch a stuff to attempt to fix it (I'm betting they were just trying to get money out of me). There were two major things they wanted to do. One was a fuel-injection cleaning, and the other I can't remember off the top of my head.

In any event, we declined since they didn't have a true root cause. The car stalled on my wife again today. She is lousy to get info out of. She can't tell me a lot other than "the car stops". I asked her if the power goes off, and she thinks it does. She has said that she loses power steering as well, making me think that the electical system has shut off all together. I don't know about the RPM gauge. She hasn't complained about any problems starting the car, so I think it is turning over OK.

I'm no car person, and I'm sick of repair shops sticking it to us for small fixes. Does anyone have any tips for how I should go at this? I could certainly check the fuses. Do they just pop out of the fuse box if I tug hard enough on them?

-JD

[GTPWarrior]

Like I said it seems to me that you have the symptoms of a faulty Crankshaft Position Sensor
30.00 At autozone

[mercinary]

Is there a sure-fire way to tell if this is the problem? I'd hate to replace the thing and find out it still stalls out.

What does the CPS do? And if it is failing, how does it cause the car to stall? And finally, if it is going bad, why are no codes stored or engine fault lights turned on?

Sorry for all the questions! And thanks in advance for all the help.

-Merc

[GTPWarrior]

Originally Posted by mercinary

Is there a sure-fire way to tell if this is the problem? I'd hate to replace the thing and find out it still stalls out.

What does the CPS do? And if it is failing, how does it cause the car to stall? And finally, if it is going bad, why are no codes stored or engine fault lights turned on?

Sorry for all the questions! And thanks in advance for all the help.

-Merc

First don't know why no codes. Mine went out and never threw a code.
It is the sync for the computer. It tells the computer everything. If the two isn't singing together the car won't fire right causing the car to stall out. It happened to me often twards the end @ 75MPH on the highway in California. Really once it startes to go it will happen often and will become harder and harded to start then blame down for weeks and month's. I swear I will almost guarantee thats your problem.

[mercinary]

The only weird things are:

#1: It always happens when starting from a stopped position (i.e. only going a few miles an hour)

#2: There have been no problems whatsoever starting the car.

-Merc

[mercinary]

Note: Other people have reported the same problem over here:

http://www.grandprix.net/problems/

If linking that site was a breach of forum rules, I apologiuze in advance and please remove it.

-Merc

[mercinary]

Does anyone know if a faulty fuel pump resistor could cause this? I have now read in a number of places that the Grand Prix (97 and up) is infamous for bad fuel pump resistors based on the location near the wheelwell (corrodes quickly).

I'm considering taking the car to a shop and getting the resistor and the Crankshaft Position Sensor replaced. I'm braindead when it comes to self-car-repair, so I may have no other option.

-Merc

[jimmytroanoke]

Originally Posted by mercinary

Does anyone know if a faulty fuel pump resistor could cause this? I have now read in a number of places that the Grand Prix (97 and up) is infamous for bad fuel pump resistors based on the location near the wheelwell (corrodes quickly).

I'm considering taking the car to a shop and getting the resistor and the Crankshaft Position Sensor replaced. I'm braindead when it comes to self-car-repair, so I may have no other option.

-Merc

If you are not good at auto repair, maybe try a different dealer. You are much better off getting a proper diagnosis than firing the parts bazooka at it. A good dealer tech should be able to take an educated look at it and diagnose it. Intermittents are a bitch. Some of the larger dealers have a diagnostic recorder that they will plug into your diagnostic port and let you sign it out for a day or two. It will record whatever is going on in your car's computer when the fault happens.

BTW: Power steering in your car is driven by the engine and has nothing electric about it! You lose it because when the engine stalls the belt stops driving the pump.

You might also try posting your question on the forums at www.flatratetech.com - It is staffed by dealership technicians, many with 20-30 years experience. They have gotten my @ss out of a crack many times!

I also agree from what I have read here and other places that it sounds like the CPS, but I am not a tech, just a fast reader!

[mercinary]

OK, so I have been driving my wife's car for months now. For a long time, the car didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Today I was driving it and all hell broke lose.

First off, I came to a stop sign. As I went to pull out, the car didn't stall (as my wife had told me), but rather the RPMs shot up as I gave it gas, but it only slowly rolled forward as if I hadn't given it gas. The engine clearly was reving. I had enough momentum to pull over. I put the car into neutral, and then back into drive. The car then took off OK.

Next, I got onto teh highway. I was keeping it around 50 MPH, when the car started flipping out. At first it felt like it had down shifted. The RPMs jumped up, and it sounded like the engine was reving much more than it should. My speed maintained around 50 though (I think I had to give it more gas to continue). Following that, the RPMs started bouncing back & forth between 2000-4000 like a friggin yo-yo. The car was NOT happy.

I pulled off and took the back roads home. The whole way it felt like the car was stuck in a low gear. Same symptoms, a lot of reving, and an low output of forward motion.

Any new thoughts on this?

-Merc

[GTPWarrior]

Any new thoughts on this?

-Merc[/quote]

Dffinatly not symptoms of the CPS. I would say take it in and have the tranny and associated parts tested.

[richtazz]

I agree, sounds like a tranny problem, shift solenoids going wacky

[mercinary]

Update: I took the car to a local transmission shop. I was told that the cooling lines were "rotted out" and they drained, "burning up" the transmission.

I'm not sure what to make of this, as they also said that the "could barely get the car into the garage", which I know is BS because I drove the car down OK, and when I picked it up last night it was OK. They were trying to convince me to keep the car there, and told me if I was to pick it up, I should bring a couple quarts of ATF. So I did just that. When I checked the fluid, the level looked OK to me.

Long story short, I'm taking it for a second opinion for a couple of reasons:

#1: The above story sounds fishy.
#2: I really don't want to replace the transmission.

Thoughts, comments?

-Merc