VATS going crazy, need help
Thread Starter
Staging Lane
iTrader: (1)
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 58
Likes: 0
From: AK or AZ, depends
VATS going crazy, need help Recently my has been acting funky. About once a week, when I try to start it up, I turn the key to run and when I go to crank it over, everything dies ie the dash is illuminated and then goes blank and I can't get them to turn back on (this is why I think it's the vats). So I wait 3 minutes and then I try it again and it does it again. Sometimes I have to wait 20 minutes just trouble shooting and then it will fire over after having done nothing.
Two things are throwing me though:
1. When it did this on wednesday, it just kept making a clicking sound under the hood. When I found the source, it was a black plate looking thing that has a 5-pin harness on one side and a 4-pin harness coming out the other side.
I decided to take off my positive battery cable to drain the power, then the wrench tapped my AC and shorted it out. It then started up fine afterward.
2. I turned the key to run when it was doing this today and I sat there for 3 to 5 sec and then the gauges went blank, just like when I try to crank it over.
On a side note, the engine seems to be surging after these occurrences. When I got it running today the engine was surging to 3k and slowly throttling back down to my 1k idle. When I drove it home it took a long time (5 sec) to idle down when I push the clutch in (3k rpm to 1k rpm).
Any help is much appreciated
Two things are throwing me though:
1. When it did this on wednesday, it just kept making a clicking sound under the hood. When I found the source, it was a black plate looking thing that has a 5-pin harness on one side and a 4-pin harness coming out the other side.
I decided to take off my positive battery cable to drain the power, then the wrench tapped my AC and shorted it out. It then started up fine afterward.
2. I turned the key to run when it was doing this today and I sat there for 3 to 5 sec and then the gauges went blank, just like when I try to crank it over.
On a side note, the engine seems to be surging after these occurrences. When I got it running today the engine was surging to 3k and slowly throttling back down to my 1k idle. When I drove it home it took a long time (5 sec) to idle down when I push the clutch in (3k rpm to 1k rpm).
Any help is much appreciated
Probably not the VATS. As far as I know, the VATS only disables the starter and power to the ignition coils. And, it lights up the "SECURITY" light on the dash when it does that.
To me, it sounds more like either a bad battery, alternator or a bad ground.
The surging and general oddness with the engine probably is because the PCM lost some of its settings when you lost power, and it has to re-learn a couple of things. Like how to hold an idle for instance..
To me, it sounds more like either a bad battery, alternator or a bad ground.
The surging and general oddness with the engine probably is because the PCM lost some of its settings when you lost power, and it has to re-learn a couple of things. Like how to hold an idle for instance..
When you need to disconnect battery power always unhook the ground connection-it's just as effective and you can't short wrench against ground.
If the security light isn't coming on it's probably not that but you can eleminate that as a suspect by doing a bypass.It's simple and can be undone very easily.I'd start there-do a search for "VATS bypass".
I think TA-Swede is right that the pcm has to relearn after power loss.
If the security light isn't coming on it's probably not that but you can eleminate that as a suspect by doing a bypass.It's simple and can be undone very easily.I'd start there-do a search for "VATS bypass".
I think TA-Swede is right that the pcm has to relearn after power loss.
