Hello, due to recent events (my Dodge Neon broke down) I have been forced to resort to using my sister's old car (she has since bought a new one).
It's a 2002 Pontiac Grand Prix SE with a 3.1L 6 cylinder, standard everything. There's not much keeping this car on the road, but it still runs and drives for the most part. With more than 222,000 miles it's a miracle.
Anyway, I'll skip the other stuff I've fixed on this car and just jump to now. While my sister was driving it, the car developed a dramatic loss of power. It doesn't shift very well, there is a whining noise coming from the engine compartment, along with check engine codes related to the emissions system (I believe it was the catalytic converter efficiency). Before my sister got her new car, she drove it to work with pretty much no gas in the tank (the gas gauge was erratic and unreliable). I took the car for a spin to see how it was behaving, I parked it afterward, went back out to start it to check the transmission fluid, and it wouldn't start. Got it towed by a friend back to my house and then determined it was the fuel pump which kept burning out fuses.
I replaced the fuel pump, got it running and it had a misfire in cylinder 1. I checked the spark plug (a real pain in the ass compared to my neon and my old MGB!) and found that it was pretty black and deteriorated, merely a pinhead of the center remained. The old plugs look a healthy tan but should probably be replaced soon.
Replaced the plug and the misfire is gone, but the loss of power and whine still remain.
The whine only exists above and around 1700RPM. The car's response is very slow, the acceleration is very slow and I'm lucky to get it up to 60 MPH.
Does this sound like any problem you know of?
At 222,000 miles I know that I shouldn't be hoping for much more out of this car. For now, it's good for a max 25 mile travel radius which gets me to work and school but I'd like to fix the problem if I can.
Originally Posted by The Sunfire Guy
