Questions and Answers

Chevy Cavalier Starting Problem Q. Hi Vincent, My name is William, we purchased a used 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier Z-24. It has the 2.4 Liter twin cam fuel injected engine, 5-Speed Manual Transmission. ABS Brakes, Power steering, Air Conditioning, Cruise Control, power windows, power everything. Okay, it has no modifications that I can tell other than it has a K&N Air Filter.

Okay, so here's what happened my wife was driving to work earlier this week and the car start jerking or bucking and the all the dash lights came on and the buzzer started buzzing. she called me on her cell phone and said it would not start. This was because she did not push in the clutch hard enough. I told her to push the clutch harder and the car started right up. Okay, so that's day one of the problem.

She brought it home. Since then the car would start up and die after a few minutes (5 or 10 minutes) and then would not start at all after that. The engine would crank strong and as long as you tried it would crank strong but not start. I went to the local automotive store and one of the employees told me it could be water in the lines, fuel injector and tank from what I described to him. I took it home after he sold me some HEET and a new fuel filter.

After installing the fuel filter and putting the HEET in the tank it still would not start. I went through and removed the air cleaner box and everything from what I guessed was either the carburetor or the throttle body assembly and then tried to start the car. After several cranking attempts it started and ran okay. I turned the car off and tried to start it again and it would not. So I reinstalled the air filter assembly and after a few tries it started up again.

Now the car starts most of the time and sometimes it will not if you turn it off and then try to start it again. It only cranks and not start. This car was running perfect until the other day. It always started on the first turn of the key and accelerated really fast. The check engine light comes on sometime after a failed start but not if you have a successful first start attempt.

The only things that has changed is that I accidentally left the parking lights on and drained the battery. I charged it up and it worked fine for a few days after that and my wife also put fuel from a station that we don't use normally. We usually use Chevron premium fuel on all our cars so I thought it could be the gas, but she ran almost a half of a tank before the problem started.

She also just told me that after she filled the car at this little station she noticed her car did not have as much power and did not accelerate as fast as it did before (could have used that information before huh?) So anyway, I am sorry for this really long e-mail and I hope you can help us out.

Thanks A Ton in Advance,
William & Holly

A. You really need to find out what's missing when the problem is there. Checking for spark is hard to do on this engine. You need to remove the cover to get to the ignition system and you need a special wire "tool" to check for spark. This is where I would start as well as put a fuel pressure gauge on it.