This is my first car, and it has been somewhat of a nightmare.

I bought this car with an error code of a cam postition sensor, dished out $200 on that part and took it for a spin. First time driving it felt jittery, found out it was a 2nd cylinder misfire by the error code. My mechanic was backed up and said that it probably just needs new sparkplugs, and that I could take it for the weekend.

The car seemed stable at high speeds, but took forever to accelerate, despite the fact that it is a "turbo". When I was driving on the highway two days afterwards I stopped getting any acceleration; so I pulled over onto the breakdown lane and couldn't start up again.

Then car is in my yard and "cranks", but won't start up. My grandfather came over and we tried changing the spark plugs (old ones looked newish) and testing if they'd spark (which they did). We also tested the fuel pressure at the top gauge thing, and fuel squirted out fine. I also tried cranking it for 45 seconds with the gas floored down, no luck.

Seriously any help would be greatly appreciated, my mechanic is a family friend and has been completely unavailable for certain reasons, and I really don't know when he can be available. Is there anything else I can try? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Hmm, grandfather thinks that it might be an issue that the fuel injectors are not firing. Would trying to replace or clean the fuel filter be the solution? Other than that I think it might be a timing belt problem.

 

With the misfire and the no start condition I am sure you have more then one problem, sounds to me the 2nd cylinder misfire could be a coil or a plug, my guess would be a coil ...try swapping out the coil from 2 to 1 and see if your misfire goes to cyl 1. that will tell you what the problem is.

Not starting ....Well I hate this but get yourself some starting fluid and give it just one good shot in the intake and turn it over ...if it fires up Gramps could be right...If she does fire up don't go getting all excited and start spraying more starting fluid in there to keep it running...starting fluid is harsh on your engine.

When diagnosing an engine or a non start situation I always like to look for the easy things first and eliminate anything simple....if you only have a 1/4 tank of gas fill to at least a half of tank. Start off with a new fuel filter and make sure your air cleaner is clear and free of debris

Any other advise I could give would need a bit more data ...Re engine codes etc.

 

Oh yeah ...if by chance you and gramps find that the injectors are not working, that don't mean its the injectors, the injectors work only on time from the information given to them from sensors like the cps

Bad crank and bad cam sensors stop the fuel pump and spark from happening.

 

Thanks for the advice, we're going to go ahead and try the start up fluid and replace the filter. We tested coil 2 specifically by seeing if it sparked by a ground, and it did.

Only other thing I could see it be is the crankshaft senor then.