Car won't stay running. HELP!
Asked by wendilynn Jul 08, 2008 at 09:44 AM about the 1995 Pontiac Grand Am
Question type: Maintenance & Repair
95 GA Problems. My coupe starts, but won't stay started. I had it into the garage and even the mechanic can't figure it out. He replaced the fuel pump and the fuel filter, it still won't stay running. There's a gassy smell when we start it. Any suggestions that the mechanic may not have thought of? He gave up and sent the car back home with me after 2 days of working on it.
14 Answers
it could be injectors... does it choke out like your out of gas or does it just die?
what it sounds like is a gas hose cracking, and the engine might not be getting enough gas. i had an isuzu do me that way. in most cars you can smellthe gas when its first cranked up. if its not the fuel lines, i'd check the alternator.
your timing could be off by the littlest bit or your computer is bad
like the one dude was saying about the lines, they could be dry rotted and cracking, where are u smelling the gassy smell from the most, if underneath, lift the car up have someone crawl underneath inspect the lines going from the gas tank to the fuel injector line, if a mechanic was underneath replacing the fuel filter and pump, he should of checked your lines as well, but not all will go in depth working on a car.
Firstly, goto a new mechanic, if he didn't check pressure before replacing the pump, then he's not who you want trying to diagnose a problem. Shotgun approach to replacing parts is NEVER a cheap way to go. It's fairly easy to check to see if you have a line leak. Borrow or rent the tools to check fuel pressure at the rails (I dunno if you have a check point on your car without looking at it, so get the kind that you hook inline with the fuel line just to be safe) Hook it all up, turn car to run(do not start) Once the pressure is up, turn the ignition off... The fuel system should hold pressure within 5psi for a couple minutes, if you can see the needle moving you have pressure loss somewhere, and you lines could be bad. Also you can see if your pump is providing proper pressure. Other than that, I'd find another mechanic to look at it... one who actually tries to figure out what wrong before he starts throwing parts at it.
did you chech the computer? it could be giving to much, or to little or not properly using its gas.
If it has the sucurity key i would suggest checking that cause it will shut the fuel pump off and then refuse to start. If you dont it could be the injectors or the computer or timing
Could be a PassKey issue. A scan of the PCM should verify or eliminate that idea. Anyone think to check exhaust backpressure in front of the cat convertor. Have seen literaly hundreds of cars with plugged exhaust thats misdiagnosed.
If the gassy smell is coming from the exhaust, and the car chugs before it stalls (but runs well when you give it a lot of gas) then you might have an EGR valve malfunction - they run about 180 bucks for that car. The egr valve (exhaust gas return valve) can get stuck open at an idle and will cause the car to choke on it's own gasses and not burn fuel properly. It's a result of carbon fouling within the unit, hence the chugging and stalling. Hope this helps
The guy who mentioned the fuel pressure problems could also be right though - check both, after checking the engine light code (if it's a 95 it's probably OBD I still, so the easiest (cheapest) way to check it is to do the key-on-key-off test. Any questions, just ask
what does it mean when i put my car in drive its cuts off
i have a 1995 pont grand am every time we put the car in drive its cuts off . i need some help asap
I let my pont grand am ran all day and the next mornin I crank it up n it ran about 15 -20 min and it cuts off
