Replies to post #3772 on Cars, etc. (GEARHEAD)

[beigledog]

Any way to refute this. I just did some more Googling tonight to see how to change the CSP sensor and I found this. What do you think? It sounds kind of similar to what's wrong with ours, but not exactly. Maybe the dealer would have been right if it was our car.

http://www.2carpros.com/makes/saturn.htm

Question: 1994 Saturn SL1 Automatic mileage: 137,000. Hi, This will be long, sorry! We have been having intermittent starting/stalling problems with our Saturn for the past year. January 2000, the head gasket was replaced due to a leak, new spark plugs and wires were installed, tensioner belt was replaced (needed to be - it was loose and making a noise upon cold start). Since then the car occasionally stalls at idle or will not start, and sometimes when we start the car, the dash lights come on, but no dinging noise (especially after driving short distances (~15km) and getting gas. A trip to the dealer resulted in no error codes on the computer, and they could not reproduce the problem, but they did replace the crankshaft position sensor, which did nothing but drain my wallet! Now the problem is more severe. Occasionally while driving (town or highway) the speedometer drops from current speed to ~10km then back up. After this happened a few times, I had my dealer put the car on the computer - same story - no error codes and a test drive did not reproduce the problem. Now it is getting worse and more consistent (once a day instead of once a week, sometimes more). Sometimes the car jerks/shudders, sometimes not. When it does jerk, odometer and speedometer bottom out, the air bag light flashes and then the car resumes normal operation. I do not know anything about cars, but I would like a heads up as to what may be the problem, I feel like I am being jerked around by my dealer. I have heard the phrase "no error codes were found" way too often, when something is DEFINITELY wrong.

Answer: Your car is equipped with a vehicle speed sensor and an amplifier for the signal that comes from the vehicle speed sensor. The amplifier feeds the signal to the various components that you are having problems with. We would suggest replacing both the vehicle speed sensor and the amplifier.

[OldAIMGuy]

Hi Bob, Did I ever tell you about the Caravan I had with the crudded-up CPS? With "only" 135K miles on the odometer, a bunch of tiny, rusty iron filings had built up on the CPS. My guess is they were generated over the years by the flywheel and starter gears.

The build-up caused all sorts of inconsistent ignition problems. Once cleaned it was a happy van-again (not to make a VW pun, or anything).

Best regards, Tom