car crapping out?

[99pewtercamaro99]

my car has 55,000 miles, generally well maintained but as of now some problems have arisen. The service engine light and change oil light come on continually(even when I recently changed the oil), occasionally the car boggs down and feels like it has no power, but when put in to neutral or turned off it returns to normal, and the thermostat continually shoots up to the maximum, but then returns to normal shortly thereafter(happens frequently). Any ideas anyone?thanks

[99davenport]

Re: car crapping out?

do the lights bogg down also when your engine does? Does this all happen at same time? If so that would be charging system. Your engine temp doesn't just jump to max and back down again. Funny things happen when alternator starts to go out. When mine did my injectors wouldn't stay open long enough and engine was misfiring every once in a while.

[99pewtercamaro99]

Re: car crapping out?

the lights do not nor does the system, the car shakes a bit, originally thought it was the spark plugs but it doesnt happen all the time, so i dont really know

[BLLDOGG]

Re: car crapping out?

Ah, come on, you car isnt crapping out :p

go to autozone to have code scanned. Autozone cant tell you what it means or how to possibly fix it but we could try.

you have to reset your change oil light. read manual.

charging system isnt a bad idea to look. the thermo could be jumping up due to the lack of power to it or some air bubbles in your coolant system which would need to be bleed.

do you have an auto or manual?

go have the code read and we can help you go from there

[99davenport]

Re: car crapping out?

I bet the code is probably a misfire code. The shaking thing kinda gives that away. I believe you should change plugs and wires, if that doesn't work find out which cylinder is misfiring and change the ignition coil. I also suggest before you buy plugs, taking a ohm meter ($30 from Napa for volt/ohm meter and you will use this thousands of times, well worth it) and checking all your wires. I believe our spec is about 13-14 KOhm, I don't know what the spec is for the coils. But if they are greater then that change the wires.

[matt3989]

Re: car crapping out?

the first thing to do is have all the codes read and pulled, see if they come back on and what the car is doing when they do, also have your altenator tested, post what you find out and we'll go from there.

its always easier to do the free things first before you start changing parts, its hard to fix a problem if you dont know what it is.

[slow6]

Re: car crapping out?

cant you just look at your voltage gauge (GM spells it "gage") and that will tell you if you have a bad alt?

[matt3989]

Re: car crapping out?

not always, sometimes the altenator will just get weak, it will still be able to recharge your batery but the car will not run very well when it is first started or during the low rpms

headlights, brake lights, music, ect. may aso cause a weak altenator not to have enough power for the plugs