Thread: Need some help folks, car starts, runs, then dies

I'll try and make this short. Two days ago my wife was driving the GTP and I was driving another vehicle. We both stopped at the gas station and filled up. We get ready to leave and she gets my attention and says the car started and then it just died.

I go and try to start it, it turns over just fine, but wont fire. I cant really troubleshoot it because we were there at the gas station so I disconnect the battery cable for a few seconds and reconnect it. I try to start the car again, it fires right up. So I think maybe its an isolated thing.

Well today she goes to start the car and let it warm up, it starts up and she goes back inside (car is in a garage). She comes back out, car is off. Key is still in the run position everything is light up, not a power issue that I can tell at all. The car wont start again. She cant calls me to let me know, but she cant get the battery cable off to see if that would do it again.

I come home, car starts right up. I decide to let it warm up some so I can take it out for a test drive. I go back in the house, come back out side a few minutes later, car is not running. I try and start the car, it turns over without problem but wont fire. I take off the battery cable as earlier, this doesnt help.

I go back inside for a few minutes and come back out again, try and start the car, it starts right up. So I decide to wait there and see if it will die again. About three minutes, maybe five later, it just dies. No surge, no nothing, the engine just dies.

I try and start it, turns over, wont fire. I hear the fuel pump whirr up. I even took off the cap on the schrader valve and checked to see if I have fuel up there and I do.

So what could it be? CPS was replace about two years ago, but I know that the car will suddenly die when the CPS starts to go. Fuel filter was replaced about a year or so ago, but I do have a new one on the shelf ready to be put on. I even bought an updated and improved FPR to have as a spare, just in case. I have no SES lights, but I havent hooked up the scan tool either to see if there are any pending codes. Fuel pressure seems fine, but no gauge to tell for sure.

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas or things I can do to start ruling stuff out. Im a good troubleshooter, I just need some place to start that matches the symptoms Im having.

Thanks in advance.

check fuel pressure, check for spark.

just went thru something similiar on my 99GTP, ended up bein a MAF sensor. Was weird, thought with a wacked sensor like that would set a SES light. But NO. HTH's

~Jason

I would start by letting it die again and the check to see if you have spark while trying to start it. Do our cars have any self reseting breakers anywhere?

Thanks for the responses guys. I have a couple of spare maf's lying around here that I picked up when I bought throttle bodies to play with, so that easy enough to try.

I guess now would be when I would like to have after market fuel rails with a build in fuel pressure gauge. But I think I have a pressure gauge I can hook up to the schrader port. I dont know how I will check for spark though, I dont have any type of inductive pick up so I may have to buy something to test the ignition there.

The only self reseting breaker I have ever seen on a car is for the fuel pump and I didnt think to look at that. I have the fuel pump re-wire kit in there, but that thing has been in well over a year. But I will see if we have a resetting breaker and check that out to.

Keep the ideas coming if any others have had this problem, I would like to hear from you.

Fuel pump resistor. very common thing to go out on GTP's. I'll search for the quick fix....to see if it IS actually that problem. give me a few

the fuel pump in our cars has a high/low setting. I bet the pump is building pressure in the high mode..then fuel pressure is dropping off...enough tot where it will make the car die.....so you need to keep it in high mode...



see if that helps any....if not I have found a few more

You see that relay or whatever it is that is above Relay #15? Thats the only one I have, in mine I dont have the Relay #15, its a blank spot in my fuse center.

oops, you have a 2001. my fault. I cant find any write up past 2000. your best bet...hook the fuel pressure gauge up to the schrader...and watch the fuel pressure drop.



I had pulled my fuel pump relay out and rewired it to kick on.(dont try it at home) needless to say it bypassed my security system quite well....and car ran.

relay, pump, resistor, these are my ideas. my head hurts from all this thinking

Does the 2001 have a fuel pump resistor? If so, is that something I can get from the parts store?

Is there anything I can do, look at, check or something like that to confirm whether or not I have one. I am with you that I dont think I have one, but Id rather make sure than find my foot in my mouth.

I have a 2001 also, would a fuel pump rewire solve this?

My car sometimes will die off at 4k rpms, kinda strange...

I had this problem of car randomly shutting of just last week on my 98 regal gs. I replaced a 3 month old resistor thinking it fail being defective. However what ended up fixing it was cutting out the plug for the resistor kit and the plug for the factory harness and connecting them together direct. The plug was messed up, I wiggled the wire on the factory harness side and the car would die consistantly so instead of messing around with making a plug or finding a pigtail I just took them out and its working perfectly now.

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fosh099 your problem sounds like something else. Your sounds like a clogged cat, my buddy has a 01 GP that wouldn't accelerate over 4 grand and slow to pick up...little power when you wanted to speed. I replaced the catalytic converter that was clogged and all is well on his. You may have similar problem.

For testing for spark do you have an old spark plug that you can put in the wire when you pull it off? If you do that and ground the plug the spark should jump the gap on the spark plug. That is how I have checked for spark.

Okay, I think for the moment, I'll rule out a fueling problem. I hear the fuel pump running. Also, there is pressure at the schrader valve. I would expect if it were a fueling issue then I wouldnt have little if any pressure there.

I dont have the fuel pump speed relay, so I think we can rule that out. I dont know if I have the fuel pump resistor, I was under the impression that the 2001 and up didnt have those. If someone can confirm or deny, I would appreciate that, or I can check when I get home.

Several have suggested checking spark and Brian suggested checking PCM connections, and other sensor connections, so I will try and do that as soon as I get home as well.

For the spark check. I do have spare plugs, known good ones. What I was hoping for was being able to check without having to pull the plugs individually. The reason for this is that as soon as the car cools down or is off for several minutes, it will start back up. So I didnt want to be holding a plug or have one pulled when that happend.

Chris suggested hooking up my scanner and seeing if there are any pending codes so I will do that and then I will monitor the engine with it while it runs to see what happens when it shuts down. Anyone know what I should be watching with the scanner for the best chance to catch whats going on?

Thanks for the replies everyone, it is much appreciated. I remember when my CPS went bad, it would do something similar to this except it never died or stalled on me while idling, it was always while I was driving. Some times it would take a few minutes to start back up too and it never set an SES light. So I dunno if that could be an issue. Is there anything special to pulling the crank pulley off? I had it replaced for me last time because if failed the week I got married and didnt have time to do it myself.

You could look at rockauto or gm-car-parts to see if they have one for your year.

Ok I just looked and only the 97-00 SC and 97-99 NA have this resistor.

Thank you for checking that bud. So I guess we can rule that out as an issue. Thats one less thing that has to be checked for.

Is a faulty anti-theft module a possibility? I don't know if our cars even have a fuel cutoff module...but don't they typically prevent fuel from even being delivered? I dunno - just thinking out loud here...

-Swash

Swash, I in fact told my wife last night I wish I had a spare key so that I could check that possibility out. I was thinking maybe the chip in the key and the computer werent talking.

Is there anyway to bypass the Anti-theft module temporarily to see whether or not that is the case?