Sputtering

[jpapa]

On my way to the dealership today, my car started acting REAL funny. It's still cold here in MI, so I let my car warm up for a couple minutes before driving, then I drove it carefully, not hard at all, to the dealership. About halfway there, I'm stopped at a light, and I start hearing this helicopter type sound. I was right next to the hospital, so I thought that there was a helicopter flying overhead since they're constantly leaving and going from the U of M hospital. I didn't see one, but then I realized that it was my car doing this. I hit the gas a little bit and it feels like the car wanted to stall. It didn't rev up at first, then didn't go up smoothly from there. The car was sputtering pretty badly when I first started going from the stop in the low rpms, then got smoother over 1500-2000 rpms. I pulled over as soon as possible in a parking lot to check out was going on. It still sounded a lot like a helicopter. I put my hand by the exhaust and felt pulses of air coming from it. I checked out the engine and it was shaking pretty bad, trying to stay on at idle. I turned the car off and let it sit for a minute. When I started it back up, everything was all normal again. I have no idea why it did this, it's the first time that it's happened to me. No warning lights or anything like that came on. I told the dealership about it when I got there, the mechanic 'investigated it' but didn't know what it was all about. So I have to tell them if it happens again before I bring it back Thursday to get more details about what happened. It was pretty strange...I don't know if it was because of the cold or what, but have this happened to anyone else??

[goofyguy]

did you do the air intake mod?

[jpapa]

Nope, no mods, bone stock right now. I'm really surprised the car didn't stall when I drove it the little distance when I pulled over, because it was sputting pretty badly.

[Sp00ner]

Originally Posted by jpapa

On my way to the dealership today, my car started acting REAL funny. It's still cold here in MI, so I let my car warm up for a couple minutes before driving, then I drove it carefully, not hard at all, to the dealership. About halfway there, I'm stopped at a light, and I start hearing this helicopter type sound. I was right next to the hospital, so I thought that there was a helicopter flying overhead since they're constantly leaving and going from the U of M hospital. I didn't see one, but then I realized that it was my car doing this. I hit the gas a little bit and it feels like the car wanted to stall. It didn't rev up at first, then didn't go up smoothly from there. The car was sputtering pretty badly when I first started going from the stop in the low rpms, then got smoother over 1500-2000 rpms. I pulled over as soon as possible in a parking lot to check out was going on. It still sounded a lot like a helicopter. I put my hand by the exhaust and felt pulses of air coming from it. I checked out the engine and it was shaking pretty bad, trying to stay on at idle. I turned the car off and let it sit for a minute. When I started it back up, everything was all normal again. I have no idea why it did this, it's the first time that it's happened to me. No warning lights or anything like that came on. I told the dealership about it when I got there, the mechanic 'investigated it' but didn't know what it was all about. So I have to tell them if it happens again before I bring it back Thursday to get more details about what happened. It was pretty strange...I don't know if it was because of the cold or what, but have this happened to anyone else??

That's what my car did when it stalled on the side of the road. Once I got it started again, it sounded alot like your describing, worse really. I thought I had blown it up. 5 minutes later it was fine. Best I can tell, it was the Cam Sensor. I read the letter they sent out, and compared to what the techs told me while fixing it, there's some missing info. In particular, the seals that are being recalled not only leak, but they must be either too soft, or the wrong size or something, because they also allow the sensor to move slightly. When the sensor moves, even a tiny bit, that's what causes the actual engine malfunctions. The TSB dosen't even say anything about oil leaking from the seals at all, I was kinda suprised when I read the recall notice. I don't know if this is a marketing 'cover-up' of the performance-related nature of the recall, or if leaking oil is dangerous enough to initiate a recall, which allows them to fix the performance part of the issue at the same time without public announcement. My TSB says 'Extended crank, no crank, and something about idling poorly'. Sorry, don't have it in front of me.

Edited:
I should add in that they did the ECU update first, and told me that wasn't the problem since the car was still doing it. It took me telling them about messages on this forum before they looked for the Cam Sensor information on their internal info network, did that repair the next morning and the car was perfect.

Does you car take more than one crank to start now too?

[jpapa]

Well this is the first time that it happened, and it started back up with one crank like usual after I let it sit for a minute. I've had no problems starting the car before this either, it's always one short crank and it starts right up. It sounds like from other posts that this is related to the camshaft sensor. My car is still just 2 weeks old in my possession, so the sensor might be moving slightly after being worked in a little bit now.

[Catshreds]

Originally Posted by jpapa

Well this is the first time that it happened, and it started back up with one crank like usual after I let it sit for a minute. I've had no problems starting the car before this either, it's always one short crank and it starts right up. It sounds like from other posts that this is related to the camshaft sensor. My car is still just 2 weeks old in my possession, so the sensor might be moving slightly after being worked in a little bit now.

Did you happen to notice if you had any warning lights come on? Particularly, an engine symbol with an arrow through it on the right side of the pods?

[jpapa]

Nope no warning lights came on, just the crazy sputtering. I really wish dealers had more experience with these cars, or pooled these verbatims/complaints through multiple dealerships so they know what to look for when customers like me come to them asking for help. That way they won't look confused and the mechanics might have an idea of what to do....because it seems like some of the dealerships mechanics don't know exactly what to look for with some of these complaints. It would probably be a lot better if they all worked as one instead of seperate uninteracting units...