I have an 03 Monte with 77,000 miles. took it for errands today and after running fine and with a little less than half a tank of gas while sitting idle in the bank line the car just gave out. All the lights, sensors and dashboard were lit up and radio worked. Restarted the car after 3 attempts and drove it about 30 feet before it sputtered out. Now it wont turn over and with every attempt it smells like rotten eggs. Not sure if this is a sensor of fuel line/pump issue. When it was running before stalling the car was really shaking. any help? This just happened out of the blue.

 

Rotten eggs smell is usually associated with a bad cat. If the cat is bad/clogged, when it's acting up, many times you can look under the car and see the cat will glow cherry red. If you see this while the car is running, it's certainly a bad cat and must be replaced ASAP.

 

X2!

 

So, the rotten smell is definitely a cat issue, although if this is the case with you, its one of the more extreme fails I've heard of. Take it to a muffler shop, but you must be able to run your motor. They will put a small hole right before your cat and test it for back pressure... easy test.

from what you describe I would assume it was fuel related:

- clogged fuel filer ($10, worth the swap either way)
- failing fuel pump (when this happens, check for fuel pressure)
- failing fuel pressure regulator (car wimpers out and dies soon after start)
- bad O2 sensor (will hurt fuel economy and will kill a cat)

me personally, I keep all of the above spare parts in my garage and swap them out at first sign of issue...

 

Rotten egg smells don't originate from fueling issues. It's a failure of the element in the cat. The '00 and '01 Montes had extended warranties on the cats (as GM found they got a LARGE batch of cats that failed prematurely).

Depending how bad the cat is, you may be able to get a visual of the failure (bad enough that it's stalling the car and causing poor performance, I'm certain that sucker will be cherry red if you check it while it's running, that's enough for me to replace the cat).

Other things like plugs, wires, fuel filter, air filter, all good maintenance on almost all these cars at this point (if it hasn't already been done). But I don't think that is the root cause of the OP's issue. I think it's a failed cat.