Recently my car developed a rather serious problem that comes and goes. Normally when I drive the car it works fine but after twenty to thirty minutes of driving the car may buck or jerk once as if the engine lost complete power and the SES light will come on. Then the car will drive fine for the rest of the drive. Other times if I go driving and then shut the car off and come back within an hour and attempt to start the car it will start and immediatly die. If I keep attempting to get the car started it will eventually idle very roughly and if I let it idle like this long enough it seems to eventually even out. If I attempt to drive the car once it has a steady idle it will nearly stall out as soon as I put it in gear and let the clutch out. With enough coaxing I'm able to get it moving and drive down the road, but when I try to accelerate it will buck and jerk and engine power will cut in and out. The other day this happened to me and I had to get home so I just kept driving and eventually the problem seemed to go away.

I have no idea what is going on and what is wrong, so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks Christian

 

It sounds like an opti problem. Check the ses code # that was seen. How many miles on car?

 

I'm thinkin fuel filter myself. My car had some of those symptoms and it was the fuel filter.What SES code is it?I had lean right and left banks? more info on the SES code plz.I'd try fuel filter fist a lot cheaper than a opti. Just my .02

 

Thanks for the replies guys. The car has just over 100k miles on it. I'm not sure how to check the codes, can I check them myself or do I need to go to some place like Autozone and have them check them? Also would either a bad opti spark or bad fuel filter cause the problem to be intermitent?

Thanks again

 

Not sure about the opti being intermitent.But with my fuel filter it was.I'd be cruisin at like 30 miles per hour and the car would just die.Or if I was in a parking lot the idle would sometimes jump all over the place and eventually die. It's kinda like the comptuters freakin out over o2 sensor readings and is tryin its hardest to keep here runnin.I imho it's probably the fuel filter. Yeah Autozone can scan it for u and fuel filters are like 10 bucks.Thats a good 200+ dollars cheaper than a opti and can be put towards some mod.Good Luck man hope i helped.

 

Thanks for the replies, looks like I'll be going to Autozone to get scanned and get a fuel filter. Thanks again