Service Engine Soon Light, and rough idle/surging problem

[Frazhe]

New to the board

I am have a 2001 Grand Am SE 3.4 V6 with Automatic Transmission. I have just recently spent about 800 dollars fixing various problems on my car. I recently took it to the dealership where they said the intake manifold was cracked, which caused the gasket to leak coolant into two of the cylinders, and the catalytic converter was bad. Luckily the CAT was under warranty, but nothing else was. It has been running great till today. I got SES light and it was running rough at idle, and surging at low and high speeds. I also recently had the transmission serviced. I thought maybe it was some bad gas, so I filled it with premium and am currently running lucas fuel injector cleaner.

Any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated, because I don't really want to spend too much more money on this car at the moment.

Thank You-Zack

[MacCardwell]

Cheapest thing to do first is get AutoZone to check your stored computer codes and see what that SES light is coming on for, then you'll know what to look at next.

[xeroinfinity]

Originally Posted by Frazhe

New to the board

I am have a 2001 Grand Am SE 3.4 V6 with Automatic Transmission. I have just recently spent about 800 dollars fixing various problems on my car. I recently took it to the dealership where they said the intake manifold was cracked, which caused the gasket to leak coolant into two of the cylinders, and the catalytic converter was bad. Luckily the CAT was under warranty, but nothing else was. It has been running great till today. I got SES light and it was running rough at idle, and surging at low and high speeds. I also recently had the transmission serviced. I thought maybe it was some bad gas, so I filled it with premium and am currently running lucas fuel injector cleaner.

Any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated, because I don't really want to spend too much more money on this car at the moment.

Thank You-Zack

Welcome Zach. About the crack, did they fix that? It wouldnt make much sense fixing the IM gasket and not fixing the cracked intake. The excess humidity probley toasted/pluged the Cat.

I would try and goto Autozone or Advance Auto and get the codes read, its usually FREE . But most likly it was a misfire and it'll run like crap. I think when the cylinder misfires it shuts that cylinder until the codes cleared. Hope this helps. XI

[Frazhe]

thanks guys. I took it by autozone, they checked it, and it was a misfire on cylinder #4. The culprit was a lose plug wire. Now it runs like a champ.

Zack