Hi guys,

I have an 01 cavalier that's treated me really well in the time I've had it. Today though I was driving down the road and the gas looked a little low, although not necessarily the lowest it's ever been. I was about 3 miles from home so I thought I'd try and make it there and fill her up tomorrow.

Well the car died. Basically the pedal became unresponsive and the engine slowly puttered out. I pulled over and tried to restart it but it seemed like I ran out of gas. My wife came by and I put about 2 gallons of gas in the tank but it STILL wouldn't start. For a while it would seem like it was going to start and then it'd just putter out again. Now when I try and start it all it does is keep turning over.

Anyone know what this might be? My immediate guess would be a bad fuel pump but could there be a chance that I just ran out of gas and flooded the engine while trying to start it so many times? Can you even flood a fuel injected car?

If it is the fuel pump, where is that located and how hard is it to change? I'm pretty mechanically inclined so I might be able to do it, but if not how much do you think a mechanic would charge?


Thanks a ton.

You can flood a fuel injected car.. to clear the flood, you push the pedal to the floor (WOT) and start it.

Trick for the fuel pump... listen to the tank while someone else turns the key to on position... you should hear the fuel pump run for 3 seconds and shut off. If not.. then that could be it. It's pretty quiet tho, make sure it's dead quiet around you... pull the rear seat if you don't have a helper (the pump is right under the middle seat hump).

Could be a clogged fuel filter.

Good luck... hope it's not the pump... I've changed a few, and it always sucks to drop the tank to do it.

...j

the fuel pump is in the fuel tank so you have to drop the fuel tank to change it

now this is one of those thing kiss (keep it simple silly) things

first of all check for the fuel pump to pressurize (if it does)
Then crank the engine over a couple of times and smell the exhaust pipe to see if there is a petrol smell (if you have fuel skip to part 2)

If you don't have fuel and the fuel pump primes when was the last time you replaced the fuel filter if it hasn't been a wile it is a good idea to replace it anyways there like $8

If you want to see what a it takes to fix A Poorly maintained cavalierclick here (this is hopefully going to be my new project car)

OK now that you have that replaced and you still don't have fuel you are out of my realm of expertise and it's time to take it to a mechanic who can hook it to a computer and solve your problem.

(This was on my 98 Plymoth breeze it had a 2.4l dohc) my mechanic charged me $75 to clean and test the fuel system (turned out i had 2 bad injectors which was causing me a loss of 50% power)


Part 2
(If you have fuel)
When was the last time you changed the plug wires/plugs pull the plugs and do a spark test it takes like 5 minutes if you don't have spark replace the plugs and wires it's like $40

If you still don't have spark simply remove one of the plug wires off the coil and have a friend crank the motor there should be enough voltage for the spark energy to arc across the valve cover try this with each cylinder only have one lead removed from the coil at a time

If you do not have spark on a cylinder the coil is out possibly (or like my 97 z24 both coils burnt up with in a 15 min period one day i had a map sensor issue and the coils over heated i replaced them to be on the safe side)

If you still don't have spark it's a good idea to take it to a mechanic because again you are out of my realm of expertise