rtrcarman

I drive a 98 Z28, I bought it brand new in January 99.
It has just over 26,000 miles on it, but the warranty has expired as it's more than 3 years old.
Today it died while I was driving down the highway, with my 12 year old daughter also in the car.
It sounded as if it backfired, big noise, then it died.

I had no steering, the steering wheel locked and the car just died.
Thank goodness there was no car behind us or we could have been killed, if another vehicle had ploughed into our car from behind.
The car did start again and I drove slowly on the side of the highway all the way to the local Chevy service place.
They have the car now, but won't even look at it till tomorrow.

Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong with my car, or had a similar problem?
This car has just over 26,000 miles on it.
Yesterday when I tried to start it, it backfired and died in my garage.
But I really didn't think about it, stupidly.
Now it stops point blank in the middle of the highway, putting our lives in extreme danger.

Any ideas guys?!!

Aklaim

Sugar in the gas tank? Do you have enemies? Thats all that comes to mind for me......but I am in no way knowledgeable when it comes to these cars....

rtrcarman

LOL.
I thought about that, maybe somebody had messed with it.
But I have no enemies I'm aware of!

SFB767

The same thing happened to my brother with his Sonoma. It turned out to be the fuel filter and the truck has been great since it was replaced. I didn't think the fuel filter would have caused his steering wheel to lock, but it did. Have your fuel filter changed if you've never done it before.

dave1w41

The steering didn't "lock" he just lost power steering because the engine stopped running. The car could still be steered. It is un-nerving to have that happen but it ins't really all that serious.

rtrcarman

The car couldn't be steered, the steering wheel wouldn't move.
The car just died, I couldn't steer at all.
If you lose power steering, does the steering wheel lock tight ?

This was on the highway, the car moved forward and to the right a few feet, before coming to a complete stand still inbetween two lanes.
Un-nerving really doesn't describe how it feels to suddenly come to a complete halt on a busy highway!
Had there been a vehicle behind us, I might not be here right now.

BTW, I'm a female, a she not a he, Carman is my name. Nothing to do with cars.......

Schismblade

It doesn't lock, it's just harder to turn.

AL SS590 M6

Carman,
The steering really did not lock as Dave said. But these cars have a high ratio steering and without the power steering pump running it takes a lot of muscle to turn it. Keep this in mind for if it ever happens again. You can turn it just throw everything into it and get it off of the road.
As far as the car just quitting like that? And then restarting. Could be the fuel filter. Could be a bad PCM or VATS.

dave1w41

There is one thing that can cause something like that to occur but it would only happen if there was a malfunction in the park-lock components or the ignition switch. A keychain with a bunch of doodads on it can often be heavy enough to pull the ignition cylinder into the "unlock" position out of the "run" position - a perfectly normal condition for those who have a big mass of keys or some other stuff hanging on the keychain. But it can't lock the colunmn until the transmission is placed in park or the little button on manual transmission cars is pushed to allow the key to move to the "lock" position - unless something is wrong with those components. At any rate, column locked or not, it would cause the engine to stop running.