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wingsauce7
Well-Known Member
[FONT="]I have a '01 Saturn SL1, 5 sp standard with 325K miles on it. It's been running great until a couple days ago when after driving about 15-20 min, the engine started losing power. Took me about 15 mins to get it into a parking lot off the highway.
I looked for any obvious vacuum leaks, bad spark plug connections, ect. I left the parking lot without ever shutting the engine off and had ZERO issues.
I had less than a 1/4 tank of gas, so I filled it half way thinking maybe bad gas or crud busting loose or water may be the culprit. Got it home after fueling without issues.
Seems like a fuel problem to me, but can't see anything obvious. For the heck of it, i pulled plugs and cleaned/regapped (they were 0.80 in!). I drove it around town trying to simulate the driving I did they day I had problems and it ran fine.
Today I took it to work. After back road driving for 15 min, I got on the interstate and after about 5 miles at I-state speed, it started losing power again. I limped off the road and into a parking lot where a friend picked me up.
Never got a SES light, temp seemed normal, engine never died. I have no trouble codes to go by. One thing I did notice, was it was kind of difficult to change from gear to gear while driving. I got back into the car 2 hours later and drove home the exact route with no issues. Both times I had problems, the temps outside were cooler 70 degrees the first time and about 60 the 2nd.
I have done the following (besides the plugs the other day):
-turned key to run and listened for fuel pump on/off.
-checked the manual trans fluid level which was good.
-removed and cleaned the EGR valve (some carbon, but little dingus moves freely)
-inspected wiring for the eng coolant temp sensor (I replaced this a couple years ago and there isn’t any temp flux when the car acts up)
–checked alternator output volts and it’s good.
Took it out again after cleaning the EGR valve and it failed after 20 min again... POS right now!
I'm kind of at a loss with it being intermittent. I would think a clogged fuel filter would be more constant. Hard to T/S the fuel pump with the intermittent problem too.[/FONT]
I looked for any obvious vacuum leaks, bad spark plug connections, ect. I left the parking lot without ever shutting the engine off and had ZERO issues.
I had less than a 1/4 tank of gas, so I filled it half way thinking maybe bad gas or crud busting loose or water may be the culprit. Got it home after fueling without issues.
Seems like a fuel problem to me, but can't see anything obvious. For the heck of it, i pulled plugs and cleaned/regapped (they were 0.80 in!). I drove it around town trying to simulate the driving I did they day I had problems and it ran fine.
Today I took it to work. After back road driving for 15 min, I got on the interstate and after about 5 miles at I-state speed, it started losing power again. I limped off the road and into a parking lot where a friend picked me up.
Never got a SES light, temp seemed normal, engine never died. I have no trouble codes to go by. One thing I did notice, was it was kind of difficult to change from gear to gear while driving. I got back into the car 2 hours later and drove home the exact route with no issues. Both times I had problems, the temps outside were cooler 70 degrees the first time and about 60 the 2nd.
I have done the following (besides the plugs the other day):
-turned key to run and listened for fuel pump on/off.
-checked the manual trans fluid level which was good.
-removed and cleaned the EGR valve (some carbon, but little dingus moves freely)
-inspected wiring for the eng coolant temp sensor (I replaced this a couple years ago and there isn’t any temp flux when the car acts up)
–checked alternator output volts and it’s good.
Took it out again after cleaning the EGR valve and it failed after 20 min again... POS right now!
I'm kind of at a loss with it being intermittent. I would think a clogged fuel filter would be more constant. Hard to T/S the fuel pump with the intermittent problem too.[/FONT]