calling car people

Elin

So while driving tonight my car engine just ... stopped working, almost as if we had gone into neutral some how. We coasted onto a shoulder at that point. Now, all my electrical works, lights, air, radio. You turn the key for the engine though and nothing, just fwoosh. Now, there was fluid from underneath the car but I'm not sure what to make of that, we had the air going on high and it was clear and orderless. Maybe water from the air condenser? We looked under the hood and nothing looked wrong, no smoke, no steam, looked like a car that should be working.

My car is a 2004 Chevy Aveo, I had all the scheduled maintenance done less than a year ago, including flushing all my fluids. I have around 50k miles. The car is in the shop parking lot right now, and I don't know when he'll get to it as he was closed when this happened. So I ask you, how fucked do you think I am?

Edit - I have an automatic.

MushroomStick

Did any dash lights come on? Did the radio randomly shut off right before this happened?

Elin

No, the radio stayed on, the only dash light was the check engine light and it came on when the engine stopped working.

MushroomStick

You're sure there was no battery light? Sometimes Aveos start dropping voltage and when it gets to a certain point, the throttle shuts off (aveos are drive by wire). If that's the problem, charging or replacing the battery will be a temporary fix.

A dealership might tell you the throttlebody is bad and some chip needs to be reflashed. Typically, they come to this conclusion by reading the codes that tripped the engine light - unfortunately, these will usually be false positives triggered by the drop in voltage.

Elin

I don't remember seeing the battery light, but I wasn't driving. The engine light is on the center console and I know I did see that. My dealership isn't in business anymore so I take my car to the local small mechanic shop that has a reputation for honesty and quality work. And thank god still in warranty as well, I insisted on getting the drive train warranty for 36 months or 30k miles. I'm on month 31 and have put maybe 15k miles on it.

MushroomStick

The problem I described won't be considered drive train by a dealership. I had a 2007 Aveo and my story ends with me recharging the battery to get the car to play nice long enough to be traded in for a Mazda. I've yet to find a story about an Aveo with intermittent electrical problems that ends with the car getting fixed. Hopefully your problem turns out to be something else, but the only thing I can think of that'd be worse than that problem is to spend thousands of dollars to have it not fixed.

Sir Carcass

I had a very similar thing happen on Friday to my 03 Maxima, except it was the battery and brake lights instead of the check engine light, but the other symptoms were the same. It ended up being the alternator.

Beltaine

I'm going to agree with the alternator.

It died, therefore your battery stops charging. Eventually you drain the battery enough that the engine dies due to lack of spark or in your case, the ECU shuts it off because of drive-by-wire systems.

Be sure to have them check the alternator. Since most shops now just plug in a scanner to tell them what's wrong with the car, it will say low voltage, they'll charge the battery and everything work great and never check the alternator. A couple of hours runtime later and you'll be in the same boat.

Sir Carcass

Beltaine wrote: »

I'm going to agree with the alternator.

It died, therefore your battery stops charging. Eventually you drain the battery enough that the engine dies due to lack of spark or in your case, the ECU shuts it off because of drive-by-wire systems.

Be sure to have them check the alternator. Since most shops now just plug in a scanner to tell them what's wrong with the car, it will say low voltage, they'll charge the battery and everything work great and never check the alternator. A couple of hours runtime later and you'll be in the same boat.

Yeah, for mine I actually changed the battery before taking it in, seeing if that would fix it (it was an old battery anyway), and it fixed it... for about 20 minutes, then the lights came on again. I didn't lose power this time, but it was because the new battery hadn't been run down enough yet before I got it to the mechanic. I had checked the alternator the day before when the lights first came on, but they had gone off at that point and it was putting out about 13.5 volts. I think it was just slowly dying, and finally did on my drive home the next day.