Hello everyone! I am new to the forum (as you can tell by my post count) but I am not new to working on vehicles. I have a BMW M3 that I have fully built and a Mitsubishi Eclipse that I have turned into my track car.

I need some help diagnosing my mother's car ('99 Saturn SL2). I have never seen this problem before and I do not know where to begin (without throwing parts at it).

The symptoms:
1. After sitting overnight, car starts in morning but after a minute or so and putting car in drive, the tachometer drops to zero, coolant and battery lights come on, car has zero acceleration as if in limp mode but car stays running.
2. With time and shifting to neutral and back to drive, the gauges come back alive and car drives fine.
3. This happens randomly and has gotten progressively more frequent.
4. She told me that she saw smoke (she doesn't remember the color) pluming from the exhaust. The smoke went away when the gremlin seized.

Any ideas regarding where to begin diagnosis would be helpful. I appreciate any input.

Thanks,
Buckley

 

Welcome, go toss a post in the intro section haha, Wat year M3?
First off, most s series saturns have an issue with burning oil (before I rebuilt my 99 SL2, it was burning 3 qts every 2000 miles) Check the oil. However, does the coolant light FLASH or does it stay Steady. If it is flashing it means low coolant (or sticky coolant level sensor), if its steady it means its hot, but that shouldnt be an issue if it was just started.
I would start at looking at the simplest area, the battery cables. They tend to get eaten up inside the casing. Maybe the alternator isnt pushing enough power to run everything at once. WHen it is being run by le 'gremlin', take a voltmeter and go to the battery and read charge. Im sure you know the rest of the drill haha.

Start in those two places and when I get off work later Ill take a look in my Factory Service manual

 

Thank you for a quick reply. I should have said that I have tested all connections to the battery. During gremlin issue, battery reads 11.9V and alternator reads 14.1V. A new battery was installed, hoping that the problem would be fixed - to no avail. I will look at any corroded connections, etc and report back. The coolant light stays steady as if the car were in the "on" position.

In the meantime, any further suggestions would be extremely helpful.

PS - I currently have an Alpine White '98 M3 as my daily driver (fully built waiting for boost).

 

Sounds like a power thing to me. As in it's not getting it all the time.

Cut back a half inch of of the positive battery cables covering............see green get a new cable.

Lockheed Martin Corporation

 

Check the ECTS and wiring connector. It may just be that simple.