Car falling on its face and dying
05-07-2014, 06:47 PM
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Car falling on its face and dying So recently my car has been acting up. I start it, idles rough, and if I give it any sort of gas it wants to die and has black smoke coming out. While driving, it has serious misses at random rpm. Checked the ignition coil and it's good. I have a fuel pressure gauge in a pod. And the pressure reads good. I'm pretty sure my plugs are getting spark too. Is it my opti? I thought that those just die all at once. Any suggestions?
05-07-2014, 07:56 PM
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When this first happened, I got a check engine light but the car was at home and I didn't want to risk going to autozone to get scanned. I probably wouldn't have made it. So I unhooked the battery overnight to let everything reset and restarted it today and had the same symptoms but no SES light.
05-07-2014, 10:42 PM
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Okay step one is gonna be finding out what that code is. Thats gonna help you the most in finding out what direction to take your second step. If its a misfire code then its more than likely going to be an ignition problem. The fact that you said black smoke is coming out of the exhaust and that your reading good fuel pressure makes me think its probably not a fuel problem but perhaps an overfuel problem. Check that code and post up what it says. Sounds like a sensor to me. O2, Coolant temp, Throttle position...maybe one of those
05-08-2014, 01:26 PM
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One thing to add that just came to my mind. Right before this happened, I broke the black outline or guide or whatever you call it that the coolant sensor plugs into. The one going into the water pump. I epoxied that piece back on and then plugged the wires in. Maybe a bad connection here could be causing the issues?
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05-08-2014, 08:09 PM
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Sounds like a likely culprit to me. Slap a new one in and let us know how it works out. I think they're relatively cheap $<20. Just like SS was saying this is the important temp sensor. It feeds the PCM a temp reading and the PCM fuels the car accordingly just like on a carbureted engine where it uses a choke to limit air so it can get more fuel on a cold start up the PCM in a fuel injected car does this using the temp sensor and spraying more fuel through the injectors when it senses its cold. So if your temp sensor fails it can act in a similar way a carbureted car would with the choke stuck closed.
Last edited by bfd811; 05-08-2014 at 08:14 PM.
05-13-2014, 11:59 AM
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Just figured I'd update this thread. It ended up being that sensor. I went ahead and bought the new sensor and a new pigtail, installed them both, and she runs great! Crazy how one little sensor can wreak havoc like that. Thanks for all of your help!