Hello All,

My mom and I bought this car for my graduation gift and we don't know too much about cars. However, the car was bought used and now the three month warranty is up. My car jerks (sometimes violently if it is below a half a tank of gas and if it is cheap gas) either when switching from first to second or second to third gear. It will hesitate and then lurch forward and the rpm surges up as well. I took it to a dealership once and they claimed they could not get it to duplicate the problem so they couldn't determine what the issue was. I made the mistake of telling them ahead of time that my car was under a warranty so I believe this is why they screwed me over. The car has this issue much less to none when it is on a full tank of gas (particularly BP gas) although it has jerked even during these circumstances. What is the problem? And how as a young woman should I go about getting this fixed without being taken advantage of?

 

May be the fuel pump. Do you have any engine light on?

 

First you want to stay away from low octane gas. The car is set up to run on Premium. That is not going to cause the issue you have unless you are buying from a No name gas station that uses very low grade 87 or below gas. Use 90 or 93 is best i know that is cost more but the car will be much happier for it and so will you as the driver. The car was taken in while the warranty was in effect and they could not duplicate the problem means nothing as long as you made them aware of it. How long has the warranty been over ?? If less that a few week/month go back and demand that they fix the problem. They will tell you that its out of warranty but as long as you made them aware of the issue while it was in effect they own it with in a reasonable amount of time. Second are you getting any CEL(check engine lights) or messages in the message center box??

 

Yes I have been using mid grade currently but I will upgrade to premium...it does run much better with the right gas. I also recently got a oil change...synthetic oil.....a couple of days ago and the car has barely jerked since then. There are no CEL's though just this random jerking. When I got the oil changed they said everything was clean and in good shape. As for the warranty, unfortunately i took the car down in Memphis, TN while i was doing some job training and I am nowhere near there now. That was back in July. That angers me though because I gave them a very detailed description of what was going on with my car and they pretended like they couldn't help.

 

There are 1 or 2 other thing you can look at that may cause this type of Jump. The first thing is the upper Engine mount. These are know to break down over time and allow the engine to slid . This is located right at the top of the engine and looks like this Polyurethane Upper Engine Stabilizer Mount. This is an upgraded replacement part.
Also the other thing you want to look at is the ,lower Trany mount. This is located under the car right in the middle. You can see the front part of it at the skid plate. It looks like this Transmission Torque Mount.