Questions and Answers

Two Chevy Cavaliers, Two Problems Q. I am writing to try and get some help on two different cars. First we own a 1991 Chevy Cavalier Z-24 with a 3.1 liter manual transmission. It was acting up, missing and jerking so, under a local mechanic's advise, we replaced the computer, and all three coil packs as well as the wires and spark plugs. She ran beautifully for a week then one day she started to jerk and hesitate again.

Then later that day she just died going down the road. She turns over easy but does not start and the trouble code just flashes the 12 three times but no codes are stored. We've been told it may be the timing belt or problems with the new electrical parts we installed. Any advice on how to figure out which one?

Also while this car was down we purchased a 1994 Chevy Cavalier 2.2 liter with an automatic transmission and 115,000 miles on it. Right after we bought it, it had problems when we'd come to a stop. It would jerk then die. Our mechanic unhooked an idle sensor of some kind to the transmission and that cleared that problem, she runs pretty good except that she has a tappet sound to her and sometimes you can detect a rotten egg smell.

Fuel economy is not great and when we replaced the spark plugs we found it had oil on one of them, not burned or caked on oil, but almost a clean dripping of oil. She doesn't smoke at all and starts right up. But we have two cars with problems and are unsure of which to begin with. Would like to fix the cheaper of the two. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you...

A. The 1994 Chevy Cavalier probably has a bad TCC solenoid. That's what they must have disconnected. The cylinder that was wet may have a dripping fuel injector or a bad valve seal. You will need to determine which it is, oil or fuel.

The 1994 Chevy Cavalier needs to be checked for fuel pressure and spark before we start guessing on what's wrong.