Hey all, now I am here with my other Cavalier, as I am still troubleshooting my second Cavalier, but this one is giving me trouble now so I am looking for some help on it as well. This one is a 2003 Cavalier LS 2.2L F-Vin, and it has always been an extraordinarily reliable car that I put 80,000 miles on in 4-5 years without any issues beyond routine maintenance, until now. The car just randomly dies and it is getting more frequent. This mostly occurs at idle, but the car has died while coasting with my foot off of the accelerator pedal when allowing the weight of the car to slow it down before a stop. I have experienced this most at idle, the car will be idling normally and then it just dies and I have to start it again. It does not lose electrical power, or if it does it is so brief that I can not tell when watching the gauge cluster. When it dies the electricity-driven accessories continue to operate such as the radio interior lights, and the gauge cluster, but the dead battery, check engine, brake, and running light indicator lights stay illuminated on the gauge cluster so I am wondering if this is an indicator for a particular problem. Now I have had it die while in motion, though it is less likely, but I have gone from accelerating to allowing the weight of the car to slow it down before a stop, and it has died while rolling so I will have to break and then put it into park to crank again, but it always cranks back up. Now I have been having a hard time cranking it lately, and I have to jump it to be able to start it if I do not drive it for a day and it will be hard to start even after driving for an extended amount of time. This makes me think it could be a failing alternator that is not producing enough to charge the battery. I just think that if the battery were the problem, then wouldn't I lose electrical power to the accessories in the car with it died, or is it common for everything to continue functioning when a battery is dying?

I tried replacing the battery, I actually bought a brand new one from Home Depot that had more cold cranking amps, but when I cranked the car and it died after 15 seconds, which led me to think it was not the battery as the car was still dying with the new battery, so I returned the battery. Now I am beginning to wonder if the battery I bought was bad and that I should maybe test another one, but wanted to check with others who might have experienced something like this before. I have tested the fuel pressure in the motor bay and it was 55 psi, so I think the fuel pump is good but I wanted to see if anyone knows if it could be a bad fuel pump that is on the way out so when tested it appears fine. This issue was intermittent for a while, and then went away for about 500 miles, but has returned so I want to really fix it this time. The last work I did on the car was replacing the catalytic converter and both o2 sensors with new ones so it could pass emissions, which I have done and it has passed. However. The car was giving a p0420 code and after troubleshooting potential issues, I determined this to be the fact that I had not got the new catalytic converter on tight enough and there was an exhaust leak. I fixed this yesterday and ensured there was no exhaust leaking and I drove the car 60 miles without any codes, but it died 5 times during that trip, 4 times at stop and once while coasting. One time when it died at idle and I started it again, none of the indicator lights on the gauge cluster would illuminate even when I turned the headlights on, but the odometer was still lit and the needles on the fuel, speedometer, and rpm gauge continued to work in the dark. When I turned the car off and then started it again, it had a really hard time starting but the gauge cluster returned to working completely. It seems like the car will not die as long as the accelerator pedal is activated to any extent, so I am wondering if some piece in this system could be causing a short or the loss of fuel, which could kill the engine.

I am hesitant about it being the fuel pump because the car just dies, it used to sputter and misfire before dying, but now it just dies without much noise or trouble, and I would think a failing fuel pump would make itself known with some sputtering or engine hesitation while dying, not just cutting off like it is. Additionally, I had an oil leak at the crankshaft seal, so I replaced this, but noticed that the alternator was drenched in oil and was wondering if this might be a failing alternator. I have tested the fuel injectors and they all read 13.4 ohms, except one that read 13.3 ohms, so I think they are good. I have replaced the fuel filter.

Back when this problem first started, it was preceded by misfiring and the car giving the misfire code P0300, but I thought I had fixed this when I fixed the oil leak as the car stopped misfiring before dying, but I do not know if this problem was ever truly fixed and this is just the results of not having fixed that before. When it was misfiring I tried swapping the idle air control valve, chair intake sensor, map sensor, throttle position sensor, purge valve clinoid, ignition coils, spark plugs, crankshaft position sensor, and ignition control module, but none of these fixed the misfiring. The misfiring stopped when I fixed the oil leak, but the car continues to die, and I do not want to rely on a car that just dies, even if it "always" restarts, I want it to run right.

I will add that the tensioner cable that pulls the throttle body plate open when the car is accelerating is loose, like there is slack in the line that prevents it from maintaining tension when not engaged. Is this normal, or should this be tightened so that there is tension on the cable? I have tried researching this, but I can only get throttle body swap videos when I Google this. So, right now I am thinking it could be a bad battery, a bad alternator, a failing fuel pump, or an electrical component of the fuel control system. Any guidance or advice from anyone who has experienced anything like this would be greatly appreciated. I love the cavalier, but now I have 2 that I do not feel comfortable driving on the daily and I want to do something about it.

 

I have a 2000 Cavalier Z-24 that is doing these same things. Mine only started doing it about 5 days ago, but it does it every time I drive it. I see there might be a few others with similar issues as well. I was wondering if anyone had figured out the cause of this? So far I plan on starting with a tuneup, check for codes, check the sensors that could be the cause, and vacuum leaks. Any insight would be appreciated though.