This all happened Friday afternoon...
Pulled in my driveway and all of a sudden my car sounded like it just developed a vacuum leak. Started spitting and sputtering and would barely idle. I called a couple friends that have very good mechanical knowledge. They thought they knew what the problem was right away. They were wrong.
Here is what is going on...... car will idle but idles VERY rough. I have dash lights but when you turn the key to on, the only light that comes on is the check engine and the anti theft lights. Neither stay on after the car is started. They both go off as normal. I just don't have the cluster of lights I usually do come on. The Temp Gauge, The Tach, The Speedometer, and the Gas Gauge ALL DO NOT WORK AT ALL. Everything else seems to be fine.
I can literally touch the accelerator and once it gets above 2000 RPM, its almost as if there is nothing wrong with the car. It smooths out and seems to run just fine.I even unhooked the battery for 30 minutes and that didn't help. I have checked EVERY fuse I could find in the car and they are all OK.
Here is the interesting part....the two friends of mine unplugged 5 different sensors under the hood, all at the same time and the car STILL idled with NO CHANGE in sound and it STILL did NOT trip the Check Engine Light.
Now they are completely confused. They took it to a local shop to have it hooked up.
NO CODES WERE THROWN!! It passed the ignition test, the computer test and something else. It basically says there is nothing wrong with the car! WTF!
Does anyone have any idea? Has anyone else had a problem like this?
Another guess clean the throtle body and IAC valve and loock for craks on vacuum hoses...
The ECU may need replacing. My buddies Mustang did the same thing(yes i know diff car, but bare with me). Idled weird, half the lights didnt come on. It passed all the same tests that yours did. Finally after 8 weeks of replacing half the car, an engineer from Ford came down and diagnosed it was a bad ECU. If the ECU is faulty, it can still pass the test because the computer doesnt know that itself is bad. It has no self-diagnostics. It may be a long shot, but worth looking in to.
"Is that your exhaust or is that the sound of someone deflating a cat?"
replace the dash fuse even if it looks Ok, a fuse can still have a bad connection from a crack and not totally be exploded
I would also inspect the main harness connector (close to the firewall). About a month ago my Z was suddenly loosing almost all electrical things, gauges,a/c, lights and what not although the engine was running ok at all times.Finally tracked the problem to one of the wires in that big connector and the fix was simple just bypass the connector bridging the wire...
Thanks all. I am thinking the ECU or even as Luis said, possibly the connector. I have heard of the same thing.
What is funny is I just took my car to a very well know mechanic (friend of the family) around here. He has true GM machines to hook it up to. His shop is actually 40 miles from where I live but it was my best option at the time. When my car gets above 2000 RPM, it runs perfect. No hesitation or anything. But when I come to a stop, it wants to spit and sputter but still NO CHECK ENGINE light AND still NO GAUGES are working. I will let you all know what I find out it is. I will be meeting him at the shop in the morning and we will work on it then. I just hope its something simple....time will tell I guess.
I had a similar problem when one of my ground cables went bad coming off the battery...i had cel and service light on and it wouldn't run worth a crap, but mine would backfire in a spectacular way and then die occasionally as well....
i had the same problems with my old 98 sunfire as well, execpt my gauges still worked, after i sold it, they found out it was the computer that went faulty
I actually thought about the timing as well. Figured it could have possibly jumped? I just replaced the timing chain about 1000 miles ago as well as the water pump. No problems until now. Now the theory of the ground cable on the battery....very interesting...here's why....I was once told that you could unhook the battery for about 5 minutes and hook it back up and that would reset the computer. I did that and AFTER I did that is when I lost all my gauge functions. They were fine until then after thinking about it. Something else I suppose I should check in to. Thanks again for all the suggestions...I will check on all of them!
the chain jumping and throwing your timing off wouldnt make your cluster not work, i still say its the computer
I'd also bet on the ECU.
2.2 97 Cavalier......the "Crapalier"
Check the ground under the battery tray. That single ground has alot of weird parts connected into it. I would go over all your grounds, and if that does not happen to fix the issue, then I would also bet money on the ECU. Goodluck man.
It's going to be the ground either at the battery tray, or the ground for your cluster at the transmission.
