[stroud2010]

My Brother has a pontiac grand-am with the 3300 engine and it has 260,000 miles on it with no rebuild. its been a great reliable car for him.
One day, he drove to work(about a 40 minute drive) when he got to the town of his employment, he filled up with 'regular gasoline'. He proceeded to work, put his time in, and drove home and parked his car.
The next morning, it will not start. It sort of sounded like a fuel issue so we drained some fuel at the fuel rail, and found water separating out of it... we also checked fuel pressure:35 to 40 psi. we used 'heat' to dissolve the water into the 'gasoline', and the engine spit and sputtered then died every time we tried to start it. after doing this several times we stood back and thought a little while...

Dad:How long has it been since you checked your oil?
Brother:I don't know
(that's a typical response from him :annoyed :annoyed :annoyed :annoyed )

well to sum it up, it ended up being three quarts low:eek it only holds 5 quarts!
So, I don't think its a fuel quality issue now. the problem is that when we try to start it now, it will run strong for about 9 seconds then just die. this sounds like a bad sensor to me... but I have no clue

any suggestions?

 

[stroud2010]

I would like to know why I have to bust my 'A' just to keep my vw maintained, but he has to do something like run with two quarts of oil in order to kill his......

the two quarts of oil that were left in the car were also 10,000 miles old, and NOT synthetic

the reason it was low on oil is
• because he didn't check it :annoyed
• and because it was so old. (I guess the car started to use it)

 

[chittychittybangbang]

any suggestions?

Buy a junky 93 pontiac grand am and drive it into the ground to save yourself the maintenance trouble?

 

[stroud2010]

not happening
after driving VW, american cars are very very sluggish when it comes to steering wheel response
(they don't corner well) they may ride nice but they feel too big and bulky

the maintenance is worth it
esp. since i'm not paying the expensive shops to do it :thumbsup

but dang! its still ridiculous

wait, were you talking about my brother's situation?
yeah he may have to just buy an other junky car...
but I like solving problems
this car will get fixed eventually! =]
but I need to know what's wrong with it first =]

 

[Growler]

but I need to know what's wrong with it first =]

Thats easy, look on the trunk, does it say Pontiac? thats your problem ukerofl

did you ever figure out that knocking noise? or get a compression test done on your beetle>?

 

[stroud2010]

Thats easy, look on the trunk, does it say Pontiac? thats your problem ukerofl

did you ever figure out that knocking noise? or get a compression test done on your beetle>?

ukerofl :laugh:

no I haven't been able to do anything due to my father's lack believing in a serious issue. he still thinks its a fuel knock yet we just had all the injectors out cleaned and balanced. I will see if I can buy or borrow a compression checker this weekend.