I have a 2001 Saturn L200. 5speed 4 cylinder. I had the motor replaced bout 3 yrs ago and it had a little less than 100,000 miles on it. it has been a really good and reliable car until now. I live in east tennesee where the winters can be very cold at times, I drove it to town one weekend about 50 miles round trip and the car was fine. I knew it was gonna freeze that night so I made sure it had plenty of anti freeze in it. the very next day I went to go somewhere and it took a few minutes to start up. when I finally got it started it smelled really strong odor of gasoline. when I tried to drive it, it was sputtering and missing, when I would go into 3rd gear it would literally stall out. after trying to figure out what was wrong I discovered a few days later that my catalic converter was glowing red hot, I had a mechanic look at it and I was told my exhaust was clogged and I needed a new coil pack. so I had the entire exhaust replaced as well as plugs and new coil pack. after replacing all that it was still doing the same thing with no change...2 of the plugs on the end were fouled out, so I replaced them. still no change, and now its smells more strong of gas than before...and the catalic converter is still glowing red...I am so confused ...please help!!!

 

Coolant temp sensors fail at -35 degrees, this makes the car run full rich. I would replace the coolant temp sensor and the pigtail with genuine GM parts. I bet your problem will go away. The coolant temp sensor is on the back side of the engine between where the heater hoses hook to the engine.

 

And adjacent cyls are not on the same coil pack, so he wasn't too bright.

Go get your money back.

Seriously.

Go.

 

Ehhh, if the cat con is still glowing red, it sounds to me like you got taken advantage of. I doubt that he even replaced it. I used to live in Kingsport and know for a fact that there are a lot of unscrupulous garages there. They take advantage of the elderly and females, every chance they get. It's been 20 years since I resided there, but if that's where you are, chances are you got one of those garages. Go to one of the local auto parts stores and ask one of the managers for the name of an honest garage to take your car to.