Well, I drove my car back home for Thanksgiving to see the family in WI. The car ran fine for the entire 8 hour drive except for the last 5 miles from home. The car just kind of died. I could press the throttle, but it would just do a little surge then go right back to an idle. I couldn't hear any weird noises. I looked under the hood and everything seemed fine there. I started it up and it ran just fine as if nothing happened.

I drove it the whole weekend without an issue, but then when I went to leave on Sunday it fell flat on it's face within 3 miles of leaving. Shutting it off and waiting didn't make a difference this time. So I had to go back to MI with a foriegn car that actually ran reliably.

Related/Unrelated notes: I have had a code 34 on my car off and on every since I owned the car (~3 years). The only thing I noticed with the Engine Light coming on is the indescision my tranny had w/o the application of throttle or brake. It would down shift, up shift, down shift, up shift, etc, until I applied the brake or gas; annoying, but tolorable.

Second note is that my thermostat is apparently stuck open. When cruising down the interstate @70+ the temp gauge just keeps going down, down, and down until I turn off the heater, then it very slowly climbs up. When I say down, it went to ~110 degrees! I just replaced it 2 years ago with Hypertech, so that really sucks.

The other note is that I just finished changing the valve stem seals about 3 days before my trip. I drove it for ~2-3 hours before my trip and everything seemed fine.


Anyway, I hope someone can help with this situation, even though it doesn't look like I'll be drivining it anytime soon.

Thanks for any help.


I love learning about cars, how they work, and how to fix them, but sometimes I would just like to enjoy them and not have to worry about the next problem...

 

Hmmm. I would probably check/replace your distributor's control module. These are about $35 at AutoZone.

About a month ago, I drove my car an hour with no problems... then all of a sudden my tach went straight to ZERO. The car still ran (barely), but when I turned it off, would not turn back on.
I looked under the hood, but could not find anything obviously wrong (no fluids leaking, nothing broke, etc). Changing the control module in the distributor fixed this problem.

The Code 34 and the valve stems seals might not be that big of a deal, but I would probably change that thermostat asap. Just my opinion.

Hope this helps!