ok so my daily cheap gas '93 saturn wagon blew a water pump a while back. not a real problem there the problem came afterwards. i limped it home stopping and filling the overflow once it got down a bit(not leaking bad). park it in the yard didn't touch it for a week or so. move it to another part of the yard to do the waterpump only to discover i'm missing the 10mm in my car tool box. well it was a week later before i get back to it due to work and weather. now it won't start. it turns over and every now and then acts like it wants to hit but never does. i pulled the plugs and they looked ok. haven't got a set of wires to see if theres a problem there. i was thinking coil maybe so i look it up and this DOHC has 2 and they are $58each ouch. the big point here is i don't really care to throw money at this car as it's a nearly 200k car and uses a quart about every thousand but until now has been a flawlessly dependable car the 2 years i've owned it. any suggestions on things i should check. could the pump slinging coolant actually have made the timing belt slip and be causing a problem? could it be some sensor causing a problem? i stuck since my mechanic skills are limited and even more so with this newer stuff. until the wife got her new beetle last year this was the newest car i had owned years. suggestions of anything please. and as i said i'm not really about putting much cash in it as i'm just gonna sell it soon to help with buying a truck anyhow...ken....
The timing belt sounds like it could be a culprit to me. You need to get the cover off and see if any teeth are missing, gald marks, etc. Nowadays, alot of heads a made to complete miss the plug if the belt were to break, so that would help explain the wanting to start but not starting. I hope that helps with your decisions, Reverend Jake
I thought they made those cars out of plastic because they were disposable?! If you need any expensive parts lemme know, I might be able to get enough off of em to make it worth the drive to see me.
Have you checked for spark at the plugs? Have you run a compression test? Even though it's got a computer, you still check the same stuff man! (it's just a lot more expensive to fix once you find the problem! )
Yep, check for spark. My guess is that the coolant flinging around killed the Crank Position sensor or the cam position sensor.
This may sound funny, but what weight oil is in it? I had a 92 Saturn SL2 that did the same thing. After three different Saturn dealerships tried to sell me everything from a tune up to a complete overhaul (50,000 mile car)I hooked up with a factory rep that told me to change the oil. I had put in thicker oil than the owners manual calls for, and when it got cold outside the car wouldn't start. The thick oil was holding the valves open, and it didn't have enough compression to start. I did as he told me, and drained the oil, changed the oil filter, put in three quarts of ****** fluid (yes in the engine, ****** fluid only), started it up, let it get up to operating temp, then shut it off, and drained the ****** fluid out of the engine. I then put on another new oil filter, and put in the correct weight oil 5/30 I think it was. The car ran great after that. Hope it helps, Dean
I work on A LOT of Saturns. In fact I have over 120 Saturn parts cars in the yard I manage. First of all, Saturns have a chain, not a belt. You would of heard it going out(the chain guides wear out, and you have an awful amount of chain slap noise. In some cases it wears through the valve cover on the P.side). If the chain jumped or broke, the head is junk. Saturn are NOT freewheeling motors. Verify you have spark. Usually a bad coil is indicated by corrosion on one or both of the spark plug wire towers on the coil. Saturns batch fire the plugs, meaning 1&4 and 2&3 sparkplugs are fired at the same time. The ignition module is sandwiched between the coils and the ******. Pull a wire while cranking. Next verify you have fuel. Cycle the key, listen for the pump(it works better to have help). Does it smell gasey? All that cranking should have sprayed a lot of fuel from the injectors. Also a bad injector will prevent a Saturn from starting. Ohm them out, connecting a DVM to both terminals on the injector. The injectors shouldn't vary more than a tenth or two. A common thing that happens to the Saturn 1.9 if it sits for a period of time is that the lifters collapse(Normal) and the valves won't open far enough to fire the engine. My solution always is to hold the gas pedal to the floor and crank. After a bit, you'll be able to tell when the lifters are pumped back up and you'll be able to feather the throttle accordingly to get it to start. Before you get nuts on any of the above, pull the valve cover to make sure the cams are spinning. T40 torx socket, reseal it with good black silicon. Sorry for being long winded, if you need any help or parts PM me. Karl
nobux, thanks for your advise and i may be contacting you in the next day or two. between rain(shops full of the old stuff thats all torn apart so i gotta work on this outside) and work i haven't been able to touch it yet. i should get off work at lunch tommorow and i'm spending the afternoon trying everything. thanks...ken....
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