my Camaro sputtered and died!

[20Camaro11]

bad fuel gets my vote...been there and done that.

[dplyttle]

Originally Posted by gzartman

My Camaro has been sitting in my garage for about two weeks and I finally got some time to take it out for a cruise. My son & I hopped in and decided to cruise into town today, nice and sunny. We get about two miles down the highway and the car starts to misfire, and I mean bad. I had to keep pumping the gas pedal just to keep it going, loosing all power. With the pedal to the floor, I was stilll loosing speed so I found a spot too pull over. The car kept wanting to die and had to restart it twice but it was misfiring so bad the whole car was shaking! It finally died and then the "check engine" light finaly came on. I've had my camaro for 1yr 3 months now & have just turned 10,000 miles and didn't renew my onstar subscription so I couldn't call them for a diagnosis. I had to call a tow truck and have it towed to my dealership, they put it inside for me so I know it will be safe. Problem is, its laborday weekend and I won't know anything till Tuesday!. Anyone have any thoughts on what it might be and do you think it will be covered under warranty? The camaro is all stock with no mods except for muffler delete. Help me & tell me what you think, I need to ease my mind till Tuesday.

Same thing happened to me. The dealership swapped out the throttle body and when that didn't cure the problem they swapped out the ECM. The new ECM did the trick and it runs fine now. The ECM is a restricted part and the techs have to get permission from GM engineers to order. It takes a while.

[mfr1950]

It's probably just angry at you for sitting in the garage for two weeks.....

[blubyu]

1+ for MFR1950 post! But I am going to also say clogged fuel filter from bad gas, have you put any fuel additives in it from the autoparts stores or wal mart? Ive heard these newer motors do not respond well to them! Hope everything gets worked out for you man!

[Andro]

Bad gas probably a cause to your problem and having the car sit for two weeks also brought the octane down

[Cmicasa the Great XvX]

I dunno about this BAD GAS thing. I had my Vette and V sitting for over a month early this year when we got the 7 Feet of snow from Jan-March. I had no issues at all when I went to start it up.

[hairtrigger]

Crank trigger came loose

[v6sonoma]

either a coil died or more likely the fuel pump crapped out.

[20Camaro11]

I purchased bad gas at a old run down station...bad decision. At half a tank, the car ran like crap and started throwing a CEL. I went down to the gas station and put some 93 octane in it and it started running better. I ran the tank down towards empty and took it to the dealer who changed the fuel filter. Problem never came back. (This was my 2005 Monte Carlo)

[Ivas]

Originally Posted by Andro

Bad gas probably a cause to your problem and having the car sit for two weeks also brought the octane down

Please explain how this happens. Is it due to a different vapor point for the additives? How are the additives bonded to the gasoline molecule?

[gzartman]

I've let the car sit for much longer before and ran like a bat outta hell. My daily driver is a Ford F350 so I usually drive the car when it's nice out. Here in Oregon the days are far and few between. It sat for almost four months last winter and started right up and ran like a top so I'm not sure why sitting for two weeks would be any different. It started right up and ran great for about a mile before it started misfiring real bad. I hope its just a fuel pump or bad coil so it would be covered under warranty. Thanks for all the replies, only one more day till the service department opens up, can't wait.

[jshaf]

sounds like fuel related, but I once had a car do much the same thing and it was something totally crazy, some chip went bad and was freezing the engine block in an 84 Cavalier I had in college. Not sure if that is possible on todays cars but I guess it was on the Cavalier....LOL sometimes you just don't know. Chill out and wait for the techs to do there thing. will be covered by warrenty in most cases!

[DangerZL1]

Anybody want to take wagers on the bad gas? It could be fuel related, but I doubt anything is wrong with the gas. It would have showed up after he filled it up the last time. It has symptoms of a bad ECU or fuel pump. Hopefully they'll have it running again Tuesday.

[Enchurito]

I know this is only sort of related but when I bought my 1987 subaru gl it had been sitting for about 5 years outside. It took maybe 20 tries to first get it started but once it did it ran just fine on that old gas.