Very sluggish, no power?

[bvanetten1]

I Have an 01 Grand Prix with the 3100 in it. For about a month or 2 my car started feeling like it was getting low on transmission fluid but it wasn't. It seemed like when shifted into gear you would have to push the gas more than usual to get it to move. Within the last couple weeks it seems like it's getting worse. As I go down the highway with cruise control on at 65 it will have to downshift to keep up to speed. and now I'm having a hard time even getting it to go over about 50. At an idle it runs fine but it just seems so sluggish when I'm trying to accelerate. I changed the fuel filter thinking it might be getting plugged up but that didn't seem to help... any ideas from anyone what this could be? Thanks in advance for any help!

[blueguy]

Sounds like a clogged cat IMO.

Start it up and rev it a few times and go behind it to see if you smell rotten eggs.

[Scottydoggs]

check engine light on? if so have it scanned at autozone or another parts store, they do it for free.

what comes to mind right off the bat is a clogged cat. whats your mileage?

[bvanetten1]

Well I tried smelling it a few days ago cause that was one of my first thoughts also but it doesn't smell like rotten eggs. Also, I have a code reader and tested it and nothing is coming up saying that something is wrong, it also says that all of the readiness monitors are good. I had someone say that it might be that my mass air flow sensor is dirty and needs cleaning? never really heard of that but I don't know... I was just hoping that it wasn't the cat...

[bvanetten1]

o, forgot to say that the mileage is at 122,000...

[jbamonte]

Had the cat go bad (clogged-insides fell apart) @ 35,000 miles on my 01 GP SE and the car became very sluggish and became worse with time. Never had a check engine light nor did it throw any codes. The cat was replaced under warranty back in 2003. Never had a rotten smell in the back of the car either. My symptoms sound very similar to your issue. I would check that cat. The car currently has 125,000 miles on it and runs perfect with unbelievable gas mileage, especially around town.

[Sven the Sexman]

Remove the front O2 sensor from the exhaust and go drive the car. If it feels better, clogged cat. This will create an awesome obnoxious noise under the hood but it works great for diag.

[bvanetten1]

Alright I will go ahead and try that. A clogged cat was kind of what I thought also bt I guess I was just hoping that it would be something a little more simple. Does anyone know a way to just remove the cat and make it so it doesn't throw a code? I'm not really to excited to go and replace that cause I hear that they are kind of expensive... I'd just cut it out and weld in a new piece of exhaust pipe but don't really want the car to act funny if those 02 sensors go crazy... any ideas?

[rperry435]

Your car may not like it but before I got headers I just cut the bottom of the cat at the pipe and busted out the internals of the cat and then re welded it.. Never got a code in the 1200miles before I swapped to the speed daddy's.

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[bvanetten1]

could doing that cause it to lose gas mileage or anything like that? Also, does anyone know a good place to get a cheap cat for this? i'm not a big fan but I might just end up doing it right and fixing it. thanks for everything!