Alright, so my sister owns a 2000 pontiac sunfire se sedan, and she is currently having some issues with it; They are becoming expensive issues.

I was wondering what might cause:
Start-up: Car not wanting to do so.
In park: low idle rpms, check engine light coming on, car dying about half the time.
In drive: Check engine light flashes, low rpms and sputtering at idle, sometimes dying. Strong gasoline smell coming out of air/heat.
While driving: Sounds 'weird' with a ticking noise. (Her description.)

The se has the 2.2 liter 4-cylinder. At first we thought she was having water issues, because of the drastic changes in temperature we have been having, but we had it serviced, it stopped for a bit, and is doing it again.

I know this may not be your forte, but I figure for general trouble-shooting, who better to ask?

 

Have you had it scanned with a code reader at a checker or autozone? Those will usually give you somewhere to go, or allow us to help you better.

 

Yeah, we did, we got three different possibilites, all pertaining to water. But we took it to a dealer, they did whatever they thought was necessary ($600+ of what is necessary...), and it is still doing it, so we think it actually isn't water related.

I should have told you guys about having it read for codes. Sorry.

 

You have already spent $600 at a pontiac dealer they are having issue figuring it outand you want a diagnosis base on the very vague discription you gave? Good luck with that.

Sometimes dealers screw up butwhen I was working on fuel injection at the dealer about 10% of my work was from small garages that had spent days trying to figure out an issue only to give up and send it to me. Your dealer should be about the best atfixing this kind of thing. That does not mean they did not give it to a newbe. But normally once the new guy gets stomped they just pass it over to one of their better wrenchs.

BTW what code have anything to do with water? There should be no water in your car. There is coolant. Coolant temp is monitor by the computer. I have never seena cooant sensor cause the system act like you described. Check engine lite, a little lean or rich but not like you are saying. Based onwhat you said it almost sounds like there could be head gasket blown or a cracked head. But I can not imagine the dealer would take more then 15 minutes to tell youthat.

 

Drastic changes in temperature cause condensation in the fuel system. It can bead up inside the tank, or even in the lines if the changes are drastic enough, especially without a full tank of gas. I don't remember what the actual code numbers they got were, but two of them were 'water/moisture in fuel', and some other water/moisture related issue.

 

Get the actual codes and write them down, then post em, what youve got right now is rather vague. When you said stuttering and not wanting to start that sounded like mine when the fuel pressure regulator was shot, but your other descriptions dont match. Also, what exactly did the dealership do?

 

I'm with Gorn on this one.

and for the life of me, I cannot recall seeing or reading ever in my years of a code for "water in fuel". Get those codes listed here and this could move forward.

 

I do not want to get into a flame war but if you had an almost empty tank and the temp went from 100 deg with 100% humitity to 0 deg in a hour and it did that every hour in a week you would have a couple of ounces of water.

1000 times more likely is getting gas from a cheap source or just one station/supplier that made a mistake. When I worked on warranty driveablity one of our top issue was bad gas. We had a local Sheetz that was the cheapest on gas around. They would buy gas from the cheapest source they could find. I could almost tell when they got a bad load in cause my appointment would all be bad or rought idle. I put in a lot of Dry Gas back in the day. Last thing people wanted to hear was "don't get gas at sheetz".

Whenyou have water in you gas you get an uneven expantion of the gasesand you get hydrogen and oxygen vapors in the exhaust. There is nothing that sense hydrogen but your oxygen sensor will pick up the added oxygen and attemped to richen the mixture with more gas since more gas = more water which= more oxygenthis can be aissue. So what was only a minor almost unnoticableissue on non-fuel injected car could be felt on a fuel injected car.Ido not know the newer (Post 95) system like I knew the old one but if there is a code for water the sytem is looking for a sensor pattern and guessing its water. There is no way I can think of that system would know if the water came from the tank oryour coolant system.

If you are having cold start issuesand it is being cause by water you havewater really bad, drain the tank bad. When the car first starts it is in open loop and does not look at the o2 sensor. To see poor running of a car coldI would expect to see 20% water. But that is just a guess.

 

I just went through this same thing this summer with my daughters Cavalier, same engine, same basic car. Started out giving a random cylinder misfire, and it had a bad sputter at idle. I traced part of the problem as being a bad injector. But the real problem was a bad head gasket/warped head, which is not uncommon with this engine. Her coolant was slowly disappearing internally, and it wasn't even evident at the tailpipe. Keep an eye on your coolant level, it may tell the whole story. If it does need a new head gasket, DO NOT put it back together without having the head resurfaced.

 

Ahh, now we are getting somewhere with the answers. I would go with gorn on the water issue, shouldnt say 'water' I think this is a semantics issue though - bygones. Get you some juice at the filling station to remove the water. Injectors, this is potentially where the fuel smell is coming from, check them - the gaskets wear quickly for some reason. If there is a fuel smell and a coolant issue you will be looking at a new head gasket(s). This is all a guess of course, at least untill you get those codes posted.
Also, if the change is temp was such a problem with cars everyone would be having this same issue, years ago manufacturers combated the 'condensation in the line' monster, so I would also check any aftermarket parts IE. replaced fuel pump or filter, gas cap etc...
Good luck.

*EDIT* I meant 'o' ring instead of gasket on the injectors.