I know there have been other posts in regards to the P2176 code set by the inability for the ECM to learn the idle values. I have cleaned my throttle housing and have tried the relearn procedure with out any luck. The problem is that I don't just go into "limp mode", the car just shuts off! I will loose RPMs on the tach and all the lights on the dash come on. It will drive just fine for a bit and then one right after the other the car just stalls out. It you catch it just right you can floor it and the car will fire back up and take off like crazy. But there seems to be no rhyme or reason for the stalling and I can be in the middle of driving, taking off, or turning and it will just die. I did notice that when I take off the air intake tube and watch the throttle, the flap is very shaky when actuating with the throttle in the car. I just purchased this VUE a few weeks ago and repalced cylinder heads and timing belt. I have checked the wiring and everything seems solid. The car does start back up after stalling and if you let it sit with the key on and not running, it goes through the learning process and repeats at the same time as the fuel pump re primes. So I am looking for any advice before I start chasing my tail. I know i am showing between 4.45 and 9.75% for throttle position on my bluetooth OBDlink. I am pretty sure it is between a throttle assembly and the ECM.

Thank you!

 

Did the vehicle have the issue when purchased?
What was the driving force for cylinder head replacement?

Bass on timing belt replacement, my guess is that the previous belt snapped and the valves got crunched. Yes?

When it does run not in limp mode, at what RPM fldoes it idle?

When you say the dashboard lights up, can you please describe in more detail?

 

I bought the car because the owner said the belt was "about" to break, so we couldn't start it. After removing the timing cover and showing him the broken belt, the price was cut in half, LOL. But yes, all the timing marks were all over the place and i didn't want to throw on a timing belt to find out that they were bent. So, I decided to replace the heads and I also wanted to do the job, because I have an older Porsche and need to do a head gasket, so a little practice doesn't hurt. In the end it was not really worth the effort, because there were no bent valves. But I at least gained an in dept knowledge of the Saturn L81 engine :-).

When I start the car the only light on is the ABS light and i have not tried to figure that out yet. She revs smoothly though the RPM's and shifts just fine (till she dies). I don't know if this was an underlying issue because the owner I bought it from hadn't owned it long and thought the belt wasn't even broken, but obviously knew. After it warms up, it idles around 650 RPM and doesn't stall till you either move or sometimes if you apply throttle while holding the brake. My scanner is picking up the P2176, but is NOT turning on the engine light. When i say the lights on the cluster come on, I mean all of them as though the key was just cycled to the second position. They all go out if you give it enough throttle and it picks back up to take off, but that doesn't always work.

I have tried using both keys to rule out if it is a security key issue, but the result is the same. I thought, maybe it was a ignition issue, but with the idle learn fault, i didn't pursue that avenue.

 

Your scanner should be able to tell you the MIL lamp status. What it should be anyway. I suspect it will stay that the MIL should be on and you will find the bulb is burned out from being on constantly for such a long time. It may not have been constantly on only for this code, but it doesn't matter because you will never find out.

Dashboard lighting up like a Christmas tree in a Saturn is usually associated with the BCM starting to fail. However, your comment about it looking exactly like you just cycled the key 2 on makes me wonder if you do have an ignition issue. There is fundamentally no reason the vehicle should go through the on bulb check unless ifta tax that the ignition has been turned off. If the lights are staying on for an extended. Of time when it does this, I'm not quite sure what to say.

I can't see your post right now. What is the year and model of Vue?

Although a completely different set up, my 95 SC2 I developed an issue where you would be driving down the road and everything would cut out at the car would stall without warning. I traced it to a bad ignition module under the coils after ruling out everything else. In that case it was more of a glitch and the PCM did not seem to sense it as a stall because it was less than half a second long and because the vehicle what's a 5-speed, I assume it was restarting itself in gear.

Point of that unrelated story is that there aren't many different ways and reasons for the vehicle to stall. If the stalling can be provoked hitting the throttle and you have an idle not learned code, it stands to reason that the PCM does not know where the throttle is. It knows in a relative sense but it does not know what it is relative to. My guess is that the air fuel mix the PCM calls for is wrong for the throttle position. As to why you cannot get it to learn the idle, there is apparently an underlying issue keeping it from doing so. try driving with your scanner hooked up and monitor the voltage at the PCM to ensure you are not momentarily losing power and having everything shut down on you. You may need to monitor it in graph mode to be able to see it

 

The VUE is a 2003 3.0 AWD with 163,xxx. When the car stalls the lights come on but don’t go through the check, they all stay on. My scan tool shows the MIL is not requested and it does work on the cluster. But I’ll drive it tomorrow and try to take a good video, but I’m also going to stop at the U-pull where I’ve been getting parts and grab a throttle body and ECM. At least it will make for a quick way to eliminate those two items. I just went out and started it and jiggled then heck out of the key and it doesn’t effect the running. But thanks for the responses and I’ll let you know what happens tomorrow.

 

Okay here’s a video. I put in a used/new throttlebody and I’m still having the same issue. This one goes through the relearn process and doesn’t continue to try over and over, but I still have a stalling issue. As you can see the security light comes on, so I’m wondering is it maybe a body control module? Also, even after it stalls out, there is no check engine light or fault code saved in the ecu.

 

A bit confused. When the car stalls all of the warning lights will always come on. I thought you meant that they were all lighting up and then the car was stalling.

There are two green idiot lights on the dash. One is the ABS which is on and the other is towards the bottom of the dash. Is that the security light? If so, security is triggering as you are accelerating and it appears that once you get to exactly 3,000 RPM it cuts off likely the fuel. But I cannot tell if the car is still running after it hits 3,000 and the RPMs drop as I cannot hear the engine. So when it hits 3,000 RPM, is the engine stalling or is it stuttering? However, as the RPMs are dropping, it looks like you save the stall by putting your foot down in the gas. However this time, the security light does not light and you took your foot off before I got to 3000 RPM.

This is total speculation but here we go.

I cannot prove any of this. You can disprove all of it. The goal is for me to have guesed correctly.

I don't mention it till late in this discussion but you really need to get the body codes and ABS codes read. They will probably clean up part of this mess. Especially if the ABS speed signal is being used to determine whether the vehicle is moving or not as opposed to the output shaft sensor and the transmission which the output of usually goes straight to the PCM ECU ECM whatever.

Not sure if you can direct swap a BCM into a first generation view with a transponder key. You'd have to do the security relearn at minimum and much more at maximum. Not saying it won't work, saying not sure.

There's also always the specter that this is an issue with the ECU but I always save that for last unless it truly makes sense before exhausting everything else which is rare.

Enjoy. This is speculation not fact.

ABS light
One of your ABS wheel sensors is bad or the output of the ABS module that pertains to the speed of the vehicle is incorrect. That covers your ABS light.

Then we need to know what speed value the BCM is seeing. If the speed output of the ABS module is incorrect or not present, it is likely being interpreted as 0 miles per hour

If the vehicle speed is 0, you will hit a software programmed rev limiter or cut off to prevent you from overrving the engine while the vehicle is not moving.

This is different and in addition to the traditional rev limiter at the red line.
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It looks like the engine wants to cut at 3,000 RPM. You must have let off the gas just in time such that it didn't completely cut off the gas to the injectors. It kept running. Which is a critical piece of information because it likely means that the engine is returning to normal running as opposed to headed for a stall. The way to test this is to rev it up to 2,800 RPM and take your foot off the gas. My point being just because you hit the software rev limiter doesn't mean that the gas gets shut off and stays off. Honestly I have in a clue as I have never sat in a first generation VUE
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The security light is coming on because although the vehicle speed is zero, there is an accelerometer somewhere in the vehicle that senses it is moving.

BUT if the vehicle is not moving, then the RPMs should not need to be 2500 in drive let alone 3000. Since the security system is constantly checking and rechecking the security status of the vehicle, the security light is not on initially but comes on when you trigger one of the "things that should not be happening at the same time combination of events so someone is tampering with me" conditions.

. It could be that the security is being triggered as you get near 3,000 RPM for whatever reason but as you let your foot off the gas the security light goes out because it no longer sees the vehicle as in a condition that it is being stolen. Therefore the cutoff at 3,000 RPM could actually be part of the security system behavior or it could be a software cutoff independent of security as mentioned above.

You really need a more fully featured scanner as I would find it hard to believe there are not B body codes and ABS codes.
Additionally, that more sophisticated scanner will be able to read the ABS module error codes as well which should tell you exactly what is wrong : whether it is the control module or an ABS wheel sensor and it will tell you which ABS wheel sensor.

So I've written you a hypothetical story that explains all of this. Now it's up to you to do some research to see if it is as silly as it sounds or has any validity.

The first thing I would do is to have it sitting in park and rev the vehicle and see if it goes past 3,000 RPM. Watch for the security light and see if it does the same thing it does when you are actually driving.

 

Well, thanks for taking the time to write back such a detailed response. The vehicle will rev happily up to 6500 RPMs without hesitation. It will sit and idle without an issue for hours. I do know that once you put load on the engine and if you flutter the gas enough it will stall out it pushed enough.

So the car doesn’t even have to be moving to cause the same issue. But it definitely happens upon takeoff even below 3000 RPMs. But, I do need to find out what the ABS light is, I just don’t have a sophisticated enough scanner to read the code. I have a second ECU, which I think I will install once in the weather gets a little bit warmer, we’re in the 40’s right now here in Michigan. I put on the throttle body and the only thing that changed was the relearn process seems to go through okay with the new one. Previously it would keep cycling everywhere in process and at the fuel pump every 45 seconds or so. Based off wiring diagrams and I looked at, the ECU triggers the fuel pump, so I’m thinking maybe that there’s an issue with the grounding for the ECU (but I’ve used a test light and it grounds out just fine). The only thing that I noticed with the new throttle is, previously it would keep cycling the process and prime the fuel pump every 45 seconds or so. Based off wiring diagrams that I looked at, the ECU triggers the fuel pump, so I’m thinking maybe that there’s an issue with the grounding for the ECU or the ECU itself.

I definitely think there’s some plausibility to your ABS theory, but I would expect that I would get more of a feedback from the ABS system if there was a malfunction in a sensor. The ABS light is on the minute the car turns on, I am also able to lock up the brakes and never get pedal pulsation.

I could probably get my hands on a body control module with key at the U-pull that I’ve been getting parts from, but I know to get it fully programmed is $138 at the dealership and I don’t know that I want to invest that unless I’m sure.

but I’ve had the car stalled from everything off idol just pressing the gas lightly two at 3000 RPM and sometimes I can save it, but other times it just totally dies. I also have the thought possibly it was a clogged fuel filter? Just enough your flow to get the car idling and driving, but then when the fuel demand fluctuates it stalls out?

I’m just throwing out ideas, but I really appreciate the feedback. I’m strong with mechanical, but electrical is my weak point, so I appreciate all your input. Thank you

 

Anytime you get an ABS light, the ABS system automatically is disabled. I think. I'm pretty sure. Same thing with your airbags. If it throws an airbag related code which will be a body code, the airbag system is disabled until it is fixed. This is to prevent strange things during sudden breaking when for example only three of the four wheel sensors are functioning and the car is trying to calculate how much to proportion to each wheel. It can't for the sensor that is bad so what does it do? If it does nothing you may lose control. If it does something but not the right thing you may lose control. So it just turns the system off. Hence no pulsation on braking.

You should be able to do a loaner tool thing at AutoZone or similar for a fuel pressure gauge. There is usually a Schrader valve on the line feeding the fuel rail or the fuel rail itself to attach the gauge. You can thread the gauge between the hood and windshield before you attach it, hook it up, and latch your hood on the first latch with the gauge face down on the windshield so that you can watch the behavior as you drive. That being said please do not crash. $138 to reprogram the BCM? Is that one hour labor? Most GM dealerships will refuse to program a junkyard BCM if the vehicle stores its odometer mileage in the BCM. Usual cost is about $700 for a refurb BCM purchased only through them from a third party.

If you've just purchased the vehicle, a new fuel filter can't hurt. However the security system behavior is bizarre. I've never seen a security system on a Saturn apparently trigger and not stall the vehicle. It is something that once engaged stays engaged. That's the whole point. Again this all goes back to getting the body codes and ABS codes. Even if it costs you one hour labor for the diag. Maybe if you have a neighborhood site where people talk about stuff you can bum one off some neighbor who you will become friends with. I have diagnosed Saturns for people I've met in parking lots both with and without my Bluetooth scanner.

Which actually brings up a point. You could purchase a Bluetooth based OBD2 scanner module. OBDlink MX is what I would recommend. Costs less than 1 hour of labor and you get to keep it forever. You control it with your cell phone, Android or Mac. It works with pretty much any program that uses a generic interface module. Do not be tempted by the $25 Chinese knockoffs. They do not work because they are not the right firmware version. So it's a waste of time and money.

The MX does not come with enhanced support for newer vehicles like the MX plus. If you have a need for enhanced support for the newer vehicles then the MX plus is for you. Otherwise you can get by without it. Specifically you should not need enhanced manufacturer-specific support, though I was wrong about all the stuff above so I don't know. Up to you. I cannot tell you how much time and how many dollars it has saved me in the last six or seven years, mostly for my wife's Ford escape. In addition to reading all the different types of codes, DTCs, body codes, chassis codes, etc it also allows you to log real-time data for different parameters that your vehicles ECM supports reporting on so you can actually track for example the fuel pressure while you drive graphically and review it later or review it in real time. Okay I think I've talked enough for three days worth of posts. Those are my thoughts. I think

 

Well I will have to check with Autozone for the scanner. I have the OBD Link MX and I love it with my ALPHA OBD for chrysler. It can pull all codes, but I only have OBD Link for GM. I was thinking of upgraded to the MX+ but wasn’t sure if it would pull the ABS codes. It’s a great tool and certainly worth the investment if it did more than the MX. I’ll do a little more with and update from there. I didn’t tell the dealer it would be a used module. I used to work at a dealership and I probably would have told a customer no to because a tech wouldn’t want to mess with it. Thanks again for the response.