My car cranks but will not stay on and backfires....

Asked by sunfire Jul 19, 2012 at 09:18 PM about the 1999 Pontiac Sunfire

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

"My car ran out of gas. Put gas in it.Turned it on. Went around the corner. Parked it and tried to restart it. Now it
cranks but will not stay on,plus it seems to backfire and i see black smoke from muffler.

3 Answers

575

check if any of the air intake pipes have come off if thay have it will make the airflow meter not work. the intake pipe do pop off when a car back fires

2 people found this helpful.
18,245

Could also be a bad tank of fuel. I fueled-up once, drove home, and the next day wouldn't start. After some diagnosis, found 3/4 of a tank of water in my fuel tank. I wasn't the only customer this happened to.

69,815

Just throwing this out there since not much info was given on the gas added. If u put gas, from a can at home, in your tank and grabbed the 2cycle can instead of the straight gasoline can, the oil in the 2cycle gas can have some nasty effects including black smoke, back firing and a no run condition. The amount of oil that is added in the mix gas will give a black smoke rather than the typical light blue from worn valve guides or rings. Also running your tank below a 1/4, whether it was intentional or not, is bad for the pump. The gasoline keeps the pump cool prolonging the life of the pump.

2 people found this helpful.

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