pskjr

Hey all,

I own a 1997 Camaro RS, v6 3.8L, automatic.
I am the second owner of the car, and I've had it for almost 7 years now. A couple years after I bought the car it began having engine problems and ever since then it's been a non-stop battle to keep this car on the road.

My most recent problem is this...

In park, or in drive, at low RPMs (1,500 and below), the engine, transmission, and exhaust system shake pretty bad. I don't want to say violently, but it's pretty bad. It also causes my Service Engine light to flash repeatedly.

The previous problems that the car had were a transmission slip, cylinder 6 misfire, . I moved to Virginia Beach about a year ago, and because I'm only going to be here temporarily for school I didn't bother getting it registered and insured in Virginia, so in order to pass inspection I had to take it back up to New Jersey where I'm from. Because of limited time and resources I left the car with my dad to be worked on and have those problems fixed in order to get my check-engine light off, but it was too big of a job for him to do on his own, and he ended up just getting me a sticker from a friend of a friend... So all of those problems still remained, but the car was drivable and ran fine for the most part. I drove it back down to Virginia Beach on Monday night, the car ran fine on Tuesday all day, and then Wednesday I went out to my car to test something with my stereo and fired the car up and it seemed to run fine. I turned the car off, went inside for twenty minutes, came back out to head to the beach, turned my car on, and immediately upon turning I could tell something was wrong, and as soon as it turned over and settled to idle at low RPMs the rumbling/engine shake began to happen. I gave it gas and it went away at higher RPMs, but as soon as it went back to around 1000-1500 the rumbling and shaking started again.

I know this is a long post, but I want to give as much information as possible. If anyone has any idea what this could be, or what may have caused this problem, please let me know. I'm sure it has to do with me neglecting to fix the other problems, and I'm sure it's probably something to do with the transmission, but I'm kind of lost right now with what to do from here. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Evolution223

best thing to do is to just walk in to a shop and ask them, it could be anonther miss, or loose engine or tranny mounts, all cheap to fix, if needed have a shop diagnose it, it would not cost very much, maybe $50.

ACE1252

You need to change your plug wires.

I've owned a '96 3.8 and my brother owned a '99 3.8. Both of those engines were bad about plug wires going bad. I changed a set on mine and two sets on my brothers. They will cause all kinds of stumbling and power issues.

I'm not discounting the possibility of something else being wrong, but given the misfires.......this is the first thing I'd do to it.

pskjr

Awesome, thanks for the replies. I counted out the transmission being the cause do to the fact that the problem occurred while the car was in Park.
I took it to my buddy's shop and he's going to run the diagnostics test on it today to find out what codes it's spitting out. He also said it was probably something to do with the misfiring cylinder and/or bad wires. So hopefully that's it and a tuneup is all it needs.

Thanks guys!

supercharged024

It's a misfire issue. If the service light is flashing while driving it's telling you that the engins has a problem that needs attention IMMEDIATELY as continued use will damage the catalytic converter. That is the only reason the light flashes while driving is because it's running bad enough to cause failure to the catalyst.