Why is my Pontiac Grand Am 2003 shutting off randomly while I drive/idle?
Hi,
I own a 2003 Pontiac Grand Am SE1 (2.2L engine).
I've been having a lot of trouble with my car shutting off at random times.
Sometimes when I start my car and then put it in R to pull out of a parking
space, the engine suddenly shuts off. The engine has also suddently shut
off while I was idling at a stop light. In both of these cases, all I have to do
is take out the key and start the car again and usually after one or two
cranks it is running again and I can drive off like nothing happened.
Today was the very first time it shut off while I was actually moving at about
25mph. The engine shut off, my power steering locked up and the car was
making a weird muffled buzzing noise as I slowly pulled over to the left as
best as I could. I think the "Service Engine Soon" light was on at this point,
and a couple more lights may have been on as well, but I didn't take a
good look at them because I was a little shaken since there were cars in
front of and behind me. I simply cranked the key again and it started back
up.
In all of these situations, when I start the car back up, I don't see any
indicator lights that remain on and all seems normal.
Any idea what is causing this? In the past year, I have replaced the fuel
pump, fuel filter, spark plugs and motor mounts. I had to replace the fuel
pump because in November 2014, my car all of a sudden died at a stop
light but in that case, I couldn't start the car back up after cranking it
several times. The shop decided it was the fuel pump and then replaced it.
I didn't have any issues for several months but then I started having to
crank my engine 3-7 times on some days after letting my car sit for 8-9
hours. It would eventually start but it got annoying. The issue sort of went
away after a while though, and now I am at the point where the engine
randomly dies while I'm reversing or driving as I described above.
Prior to the fuel pump incident, I was also having issues with my car not
starting sometimes. I linked that issue to the passlock sensor and I would
have to leave my key in the "Acc" position for 10 minutes, pull the key out
and then put it back in before my car would start up.
I don't know if any of these issues are connected, but I want to give more of
a background here.
