Ok so I knew of 3 things that weren't taken care of by the previous owner or the dealership it this car was at. These were the fuel pump wasn't replaced for this age of the car, the oil leak from the o-ring, and the A/C was spewing metal shards(i just had that removed and there was no other damage from it). So i thought to myself no big deal the mechanics took care of all the big stuff it has low miles 105k at the time. The car runs well, and I can nab it for a steal. No major rust and rot on the frame(there is litteral 2 fist sized areas that are just on the rear bumper that needs work. I can have that done as easy as 1, 2, 3). Even the carfax was perfect. So I bought it. Now today on the freeway with I kid you not to no warning what so ever. My cars engine had almost everything go wrong with it. The car was running superb all week and was extremely reliable. It started up no problem accelerated hard no problem idled great coasted beautifully Nothing wrong at all. Then I tapped the brakes and kaboom. Engine light and running very funny. Took it to AZ they ran the codes and like everything is wrong with it. off the top of my head, it has an evaperation leak, random misfire, mass airflow sensor, idle sensor, throttle body sensor, and like 5-6 other things. I have no idea why this happened or even how there was nothing leading up to it at all! The guy at AZ told me if i were to take it to a mechanic it would be about a grand to fix. ......But part of me knew the engine was going to need work but not this soon I was thinking maybe in a year it was going to need it. I am thinking for this price I have 2-3 options
option 1 is buy a beater truck civic mistubishi or something and do a rebuild myself will take maybe 6 months with all the research ill have to do.
option 2 at the price maybe do a rebuild, cuz to my knowledge that is only a matter of few hundred dollars extra like 1500-1800 hundred(everything is intact on the motors body)And by spending the extra money eliminate any future problems for a few years.
option 3 take a gamble and only have the mechanic fix whats wrong with it and pray that will all that needs to be done for a while.

OH option 4 sue that fricking dealership for a lemon car. I got this feeling that they messed with the cars sensors and some how on the trip It got knocked into place and then let me know that everything was bad.

 

1. - How long have you owned the car and was it bought as is? Lemon law is tough to apply to a USED car. And if you've had it for a length of time (I'm guessing beyond 30-90 days) you may be out of luck. But if it was sold as-is, there probably is not much you can do.
2. - AZ employees know just a little bit about cars (if you're lucky). Do some research on the codes you received (post them here for instance). There could be a common problem that triggered all of them (or a couple items).
3. - Most people and dealerships, if it's not broken DON'T FIX IT. A dealership MIGHT give you new brakes and an oil change. But replace the fuel pump??? Nope. Fuel pumps can last a LONG time. My '94 Grand Am factory pump gave out around 150,000. Never assume a seller/dealer did or had something done, ask questions and inspect for your self.

Hopefully the problem(s) are not to big a deal. But post the codes, many people here have experience troubleshooting problems on the Montes. Hopefully yours can be figured out.

 

ok well that's good news and that last option was a bit me attempting a joke and apparently failing.....any who, like an idiot i forgot to get the codes printed off, i was in a little bit of shock. I'm running it to the mechanics tomorrow Ill have them run the codes and ask for them and then post them for you guys.

question though. How could all the sensors go bad from me stomping on the brakes?(idiot on the freeway thought it would be funny to merge in front of me and then brake check ) for that to happen wouldn't that mean the ecu/pcm of the car is toast?

 

At this point I think it's premature to say all the sensors went bad. The only things I know that could cause a failure of that magnitude:
- PCM lost it's mind
- The sesnors may share a common ground that coincidentally went bad at that moment

I think we need more info to confirm what's going on.

I've worked on a couple of issues where the codes from the PCM say things like "TPS Value out of Range", but it's NOT the TPS that's bad, it turns out to be some other unrelated issue. Most recent issue (in a ;97 Grand Prix with a 3800) sounded like it was a bad TPS based on the description. Instead, cleaned the MAF, EGR, IAC and it seemed to go away (at least my friend has not mentioned it again). Further research on that TPS suggested a failed MAP sensor (because it was coupled with another error).

So, again, this might result in being something small but resulted in a lot of codes. Vacuum leaks also come to mind.

 

evaperation leak, random misfire, mass airflow sensor, idle sensor, throttle body sensor, and like 5-6 other things.


from the info it sounds like there's a good chance they are all linked to the same problem. What year is your monte and what engine do you have?

 

97 z and the 3.4l dohc

as for my last post i meant reading as bad lol.

evaperation leak, random misfire, mass airflow sensor, idle sensor, throttle body sensor, 2 more i remember, lean fuel mixture, and bad fuel pump

took the car to the mechanic this morning, any other occasion I would do it myself but time is of the essence this time. Driving it though seems fine. well have to see what it is. I am thinking its my pcm gone bananas.

 

let us know when you hear of anything

 

Good luck getting it fixed and keep us posted .

 

OK so here's the scoop on what happened to my car. all those codes that cam up were from history.....which is interesting cause i have scanned it many times and those never showed and it was always cleared after the code showed up......weird......anyways what it was is one of those plastic hoses broke and the rubber host that some one put over it to try to fix it kept slipping. so they just clamped it. total cost 0.00 ......and my pride

 

Nice to know that the big problem was an easy fix.

FYI - Your car can have failure codes that occur, get stored in history. Each code has a control on how many times the failure must occur before it lights up the "check engine" light. Basically, if the car hiccups and it's a one time thing, no need to alarm you.