Thread: Car died when put into reverse and turned wheel full to the right

Wanted to get some ideas on what I can check/ test before I but stuff. So my car started up fine today and had no problem until I put it into reverse to back into a parking spot at which point the engine just died. Still had battery power. I tried to start the car and it will not turn over, I hear the starter so I think that is fine. My only guess is my fuel pump just went bad. It is the stock fuel pump. Any other ideas are appreciated. I'm currently in meetings until around 3 today or I would research this more myself.

When you say you it won't turn over but you hear starter.. please explain further.

Do you hear the starter click and not turn the engine? If so.. pull a front plug and see if it's soaked with fluid. If so your UIM failed and you can likely salvage things.

can you clarify what you mean by it will not turn over? Is the engine not spinning when you turn the key, or will it just not start?
Fuel Pump wouldn't keep an engine from spinning.

I apologize about the lack of information, was in a hurry. The engine was turning over just would not fire up. Pulled a spark plug, it was dry and looked fine. Checked fuel pump fuses they were fine. Tried to start the car back up and it fired up and ran fine. Still gonna research it a bit.

could be a bad fuel pump. check for pressure at the rail, theres a black cap with a needle valve under it, push it in, watch your eyes, gas should spray out all over.

my brothers GTP had a similar issue where it would turn over and take a minute or two before it would start.

So today as I was parking my car shut off again. Pulled past my parking spot, stuck car into reverse and was slowly reversing while turning the wheel, when I got the wheel all the way to the right the car just shut off, still had radio and headlights, just the engine shut off.

I'm wondering if there is a cable or maybe a sensor somewhere that when I turn the wheel all the way to the right in reverse it shuts the car off. Any ideas? No codes are showing up. Had been driving the car for 20 minutes and it was about 60 outside. It started right back up fine this time.

Thx for the advice, I'll be able to check on thoes things this weekend, I know I cleaned the throttle body 5k miles ago, I'll check that. I at least think I keep my car well maintained, transmission fluid was done a year ago(10 k miles) oil about every 5k, spark plugs every 5k.

I disagree..

A loose trans filter would allow air into the system and the engine would rev freely. A bad PNP aka Neutral switch wouldn't allow the car to start, it wouldn't cause it to stall.

Sounds like once you are pushing the ps pump for all it's worth, it stalls. sure there's more engine load when it's pumping it's life away and rpm would be the lowest by being in gear.

Are you turning your wheel to full lock? My Sister in laws Bonnie does that and has a relatively low idle and any time she turns the car to full lock it dies. My forklift does it as well if you tilt the mast to full lock. You might be stressing the pump so hard it's killing the engine like Bill said. My suggestion is to get int an empty parking lot and move the car around trying to duplicate what happened and if it stalls only at full lock. Don't do that it's bad for the pump and seals anyway

Jeff

Once the engine is running it doesn't care what position the PN switch is in it only keeps the starter from turning if it is in any gear other than Park or Neutral and nothing else. Putting a high load on a hydraulic pump puts a high load on the belt for the accessory drive and can be high enough to stall an engine. This will happen only when the system is in the lock position, since the fluid being pumped out has nowhere to go so the pressure increases along with the load on the engine since it has to drive the pump.

hehe, maybe it does, he just doesn't have to when he's going forward, also the car will have a tendency to lock harder in reverse due to steering geometry. It ain't the switch for sure.

Jeff

I checked the TB, had a little bit of buildup on it, so i went ahead and cleaned it up. The maf from what i can tell(pics included) looks clean to me. My spark plugs were due for a change so i just changed them, also just installed a new wheel bearing and hub assemble because i had a bit of play in my driver side tire. Im going to hook up my HPTuners and find a empty parking lot to see if i can get it to happen again, hopefully tomorrow. I will report back my findings when i do.

Found a parking lot and tried to recreate the issue again, I turned the wheel every which way in forward and reverse, also tried to duplicate the exact way i backed into the spot when it shut off last time. I had no luck getting the engine to shut off. From HPTuners the lowest my RPM's ever got was about 580. Only difference was it was about 75 outside vs 60 when it happened last time, The drive time was about the same as well.