I have a 2002 SL1, no cruise, no problems since i''ve had it. wednesday driving to school holding 60MPH steady. within about 1/2 sec the engine dies and the tachometer drops to 0 then back to normal. thursday was sitting in mcdonalds[img]smileys/smiley4.gif[/img] drive thru and same thing happened, running about 400 RPM(i think, cant remember exactly) then within about 1/2 sec, the engine cuts out tach drops to 0 then tries to idle back up but it died. i''m thinking it might be something electrical because i had my heater on full blast and my lights on. any help would be great! thanks

Check for corrosion where the positive battery terminal connect to the battery. Also bend the positive cable back and forth to see if it feels "crunchy" inside.

I checked the cable and the battery and they are fine. i brushed them and cleaned them just to make sure but it has gotten worse today. now when the engine cuts out, the tachometer goes haywire and jumps all around. for example, it went from 5000 to 0 to 3500 to 1000 to 5000 within about 2 seconds or so.... ive never heard or seen this problem in any vehicle before and its kinda starting to scare me

Its probably the alternator then. Not enough amperage to control everything at once.

thank you very much. ill get it checked out and let you know the status asap

well i got a code reader and came up with a few codes.
P0336
U1300
ive done some research on the p0336 and found that it has something to do with the crankshaft positioning sensor but i dont know what the actual problem would be?
any help would be greatly appreciated

AGAIN
Check the battery cables.
Check the charging system.

I spent about 4 hours yesterday doing that with a meter and everything checked out o.k. i put in a new CPS and the code has not returned but this morning the engine would crank over but would not start. ive been doing some research about my year of saturn and been coming up with common problems being cps and timing chain?

What were the VOLTAGE and AMP readings of the alternator at the battery.

PS: If your not using something like this then your not fully testing the alternator.

http://www.allstates.com/electric.htmlEdited by: sw2cam

ok so i feel like an idiot.... i found out that my cps wasnt completely pushed in and was too far away to catch a reading. finally got it in all the way car starts and runs fine....