dand1966

Hi! I was driving home from work last night on the highway, when my 2003 Malibu (91k miles) started losing power. Best way to describe it is that it felt like it was running out of gas, but I still had a half a tank, so it wasn't that. The Check Engine light came on, too. There was no steam/smoke or burning smell, no leaking fluids and the temp gauge stayed well below red. I had it towed to my local mechanic because I didn't want to risk doing any damage, but I'm still waiting to hear from him.

In the meantime, has anyone had anything like this happen to them? Any ideas what it might be? I just had an oil change about two weeks ago, and they told me then that everything looked good. I'm hoping it's nothing too expensive... but given my luck, that's hoping in vain! LOL

Edited to add: Well, as I feared, it is expensive. One of the rocker arms on an engine cylinder broke and needed to be replaced. The bolt was also stripped, so they had to rethread it. As the mechanic said, the parts are cheap by the labor is a b**ch. It's going to cost almost $600.00 to fix. Ugh. I guess it could have been worse, but still, it's not good.

linda Varnadore

Did this fix the problem? My 2000 malibu is losing power while I am driving also. Almost the same except my engine light is NOT coming on.

linda Varnadore

My mechanic has had my car for 3 full days. I think he is as frustrated as I am.

dand66

Yes, that did fix it. In fact, I'm still driving the Malibu (just hit 110k). You might also want to have him take a look at your fuel pump. Mine went about a year after the rocker arm. Similar scenario to yours, including no engine light.

And unfortunately that wasn't cheap to fix, either... although still better than a new car payment!

Good luck!