My 1999 sw2 died in traffic at approximately 30 minutes into the ride home last tuesday. It started the next day like there was nothing wrong with it. It sure "acted" like fuel starvation. I got it home and parked it.... took my Chrysler van to work since then.

Tonight I took it for a ride, not straying too far from home. at exactly 32 minutes it did it again! It's now sitting in a restaurant parking lot.

When I bought the car new in 1999, I seem to remember the dealer telling me something about a passive theft system that shuts the fuel off if the car thinks it's been "compromised". I don't have any documentation on it and can't find any on the net, except that many cars around this time had it.

sound right? can I get a saturn dealer to disable it if it is faulty.... gonna be real annoying not being able to drive it more than 32 minutes at a time! work is 35-40!

Thanks
Tom

 

It also might be perfect timing on a faulty CPS (Crankshaft Position Sensor). Notorious for working while the car is cold, but once engine warms... no good.
After the 32 minutes, if you let the car sit for 15 or 20 minutes, does it start again? If so, CPS first. My 2 cents.

 

My car(95 SC1) is doing that same thing sort of. It runs fine until it starts warming up then shuts off the ignition. I thought it was a coolant temp sensor issue but someone told me to change the CAS first. The CTS was bad but it didn't fix the problem so I'll be buying a CAS now. When it first started acting up I could drive it for about 35 to 40 min. and it would quit. That quickly changed to about 2 min.

 

The first time it quit, it was overnight before it started again. The second time it quit, it would not start for two days!. I got it started again and moved it into my driveway and let it idle for a while and it quit again, but I did not record the time. I am beginning to suspect the CPS as the CAS was replaced just before xmas for an unrelated problem.


Gonna be a while before I get to any more diagnosis as the car is burried in snow and I hate working on it in the cold!

Thanks
Tom

 

hope somebody noes what it could be. changed the cps and thought it was fixed but did it again. help

 

I've been a shade tree mechanic a whole lot longer than Saturn has been a car. But, certain tools seem to be handy when owning a late model fuel injected car. One of them is a fuel pressure gauge. I never needed one for a carburated car, but I have had more problems caused by fuel pump failure which is hard to diagnose with out a gauge. Fuel pumps do not fail that often, they are inside the fuel tank which generally means they are hard to diagnose, expensive to purchase and difficult to replace. You can some times hear them making a grring noise just after the key is turned on but before you try to start your car, but some cars you can not hear them at all if you don't know what to listen for. A fuel pressure gauge is not cheap either but when hooked up to the valve on the pressure rail on the engine they should record a pressure which generally will be in the area of 40 to 50 # immediatly after the key is turned on to indicate that the pump is running.
If no pressure, it generally = no pump. Although as with any computor controlled car it has to be turned on by the computor and if the computor does not turn it on, of course it will not run and things will continue to flow down hill in the money pit.
Any pump I have had fail generally had about 100,000+ish miles on it. I never have had one fail on those cars I have driven over 130,000 miles and some up to 300,000 that had not failed at least once by 100,000 miles.

 

indeed CPS often flakes out when hot.
note that if the PCM does not receive a signal from the CPS it will inhibit both fuel and spark on the s cars.

So check for both fuel and spark (check on all cyls)-- the basics -- when diagnosing this situations.
If you have a no start condition and you have neither fuel nor spark, suspect CPS first.

Also, do not overlook simple things like corroded pos battery leads