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Car Weirdness
Salvation122
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I have a '95 Eclipse with just under 200k miles on it. Maintenance has generally been very prompt, and over the past four or five years I've replaced damn near everything short of the exhaust system and the block - tranny, clutch, water pump, timing belt, fan belt, radiator. Maybe a couple other minor things, but those are the biggies.
Recently, my car has occaisionally decided to just die in the middle of the road. This is, you know, disconcerting, although luckily it's summer and there's next to no traffic. It seems to happen only when I clutch - the tach just immediately bottoms out, the engine dies, and the "Check Engine" light comes on. I can start it right back up and it runs fine, but that's not, you know, good, and I'd hate for it to happen when I really need to accelerate.
In addition to it flat dying, there are also occasions where the tach is just erratic as shit when I clutch - drops below normal idle, then powers to above normal idle, then stabilizes or continues to ping-pong within a 1k RPM range. It may or may not be worth noting that over the past couple months there's been rather a lot more bass in the engine sound, but I'm pretty sure that something in my muffler got knocked loose by constantly bottoming out my car on the turn into my street (it's like a 40% grade on a two-foot ramp, there's no way an Eclipse can make it without bottoming out. Believe me, I've tried.)
The only thing I could think of that might do this would be some kind of weirdness with either the fuel sensor or the fuel pump itself, but I'm not terribly knowledgeable about cars. I also have negative dollars right now, so I'm really really hoping it's something I can fix myself, cheaply, without a hoist or weird specialty tools.
Recently, my car has occaisionally decided to just die in the middle of the road. This is, you know, disconcerting, although luckily it's summer and there's next to no traffic. It seems to happen only when I clutch - the tach just immediately bottoms out, the engine dies, and the "Check Engine" light comes on. I can start it right back up and it runs fine, but that's not, you know, good, and I'd hate for it to happen when I really need to accelerate.
In addition to it flat dying, there are also occasions where the tach is just erratic as shit when I clutch - drops below normal idle, then powers to above normal idle, then stabilizes or continues to ping-pong within a 1k RPM range. It may or may not be worth noting that over the past couple months there's been rather a lot more bass in the engine sound, but I'm pretty sure that something in my muffler got knocked loose by constantly bottoming out my car on the turn into my street (it's like a 40% grade on a two-foot ramp, there's no way an Eclipse can make it without bottoming out. Believe me, I've tried.)
The only thing I could think of that might do this would be some kind of weirdness with either the fuel sensor or the fuel pump itself, but I'm not terribly knowledgeable about cars. I also have negative dollars right now, so I'm really really hoping it's something I can fix myself, cheaply, without a hoist or weird specialty tools.
Salvation122 on
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I don't know what you are referring to by "fuel sensor." You may be concerned that your now leaking exhaust is now interfering with your O2 sensor, but, though I know nothing specific about Eclipses, I'd say it's a safe assumption that your o2 sensor, if you have one, is further upstream.
There's a lot of sensors that it could be, as well as vacuum leaks. You need to do quite a bit of reading about your car's fuel delivery before you'll be able to diagnose this online.
The good news is the fix was a tube of epoxy and some duct tape.
It could be the actual sensor though, which would be more money.
Anyways, check vacuum lines and air intake. Tell us how it goes.
When I had some vacuum problems my tach was erratic.
A '95 Eclipse is rated at 26MPG (which is surprisingly close to what I actually get) and therefore does not qualify, unfortunately.
Yeah, O2 sensor was what I was thinking of. Someone on another board suggested the fuel filter might be clogged, so it looks like this weekend - weather permitting, and assuming I can find someone with ramps - I'll be crawling around under the car.
-but-
By all means change it to eliminate a variable.
An O2 sensor problem will almost certainly not cause this unless you have something else going on with the car as well; furthermore, an O2 sensor going out will usually cause the engine light to be on all the time. (It isn't, right?)
I suppose it could be some sort of weird wiring fault causing the fuel pump to shut out intermittently but that just seems unlikely to me.
I recently had a fuel pump problem with my 98 Mustang 6 banger.
Once it started it ran fine. No stalling at all, but getting it started was the problem. When turning the key on I could hear a poot, poot, poot sound coming from the fuel pump as it tried to push gas through the line. Early on I had to crank it a few times to start it but once it was running it never stalled, probably because of the vacuum in the fuel line. Eventually it got to the point where it wouldn't start at all. Took it in for service, replaced the pump and all was good again.
Or, just do a search or poke through the archives.
If you did get on the show, though, they'd probably just blame the catalytic converter and call it good.
This man makes sense.
Also, Car Talk is the best thing ever.