OT help with g/f's Grand Am..
 

Folks, my girl's '93 Grand Am is in MIL (check engine light) hell... she hates the car (obviously), but can't afford anything else since she's in school.

Anyone had any experience with a grand am website that has some info on what to do to find out what codes it's giving?

Thanks for any help

Re: OT help with g/f's Grand Am..
 

you could trade in the 93 grand am for a 88 sentra or something.

Re: OT help with g/f's Grand Am..
 

try to sell it and get a nissan but if you can't get enough money to get it you'll have to come up with something to get that new car:naughty:

my girlfriend has a 93 grand am also,turquoise and 4cyl,what a
shtbox

Re: OT help with g/f's Grand Am..
 

Try this Grand Am forum.
http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/f385/

What do you need to know? Whats the car doing? Maybe we can help you out.

Thanks for the links guys,

and here's a coincidence...
hers is a turquoise 4cyl auto too!!! HAHAHA. Oh, and with ugly plastic chrome painted hub caps too... ewwwwwww.

Anyways, it seems she gets a check engine light after driving for over 30 min. The engine hesitates and stalls out when this happens, starts back up after a couple tries, she says the blinkers/hazards won't do anything at that point either (until it's started back up).
She makes short 10-15 minute trips several times a day with no hassles.

Any help appreciated, and I'll check out the links for more pointers.

Thanks again,
Justin

When was the last time it had a tuneup?

SuDZ

No idea, all I know is the oil was changed last month. I checked it today and the level was good. There was some sludgy yellow/brown build-up on the oil cap too (it doubles as the dipstick). We drove it around the neighboorhood early this afternoon for about 10 minutes and it didn't have a single problem (she was trying to demonstrate the stalling/hesitating problem to me... didn't happen).

Justin

If the electronics don't work when the car dies, then it's the alternator. GM's alternator (the same model is used in all of its cars) absolutely sucks ***. It's a poor design. They run really hot and burnout fast. Either the brushes burned up and it's not charging at all, or the diode in the regulator blew out, allowing the alternator to run wide open and overcharge the system. It is probably the former, which is causing the car to be powered by the battery until the battery runs out of juice. Either way, with a bad alternator, the battery will be damaged. If it is the alternator, get an Iceberg alternator. It is made specifically for GM cars. Iceberg replaces the wimpy 8mm bearing with a more-durable 10mm bearing, and also adds cooling fins to the heat sink on the casing (those half-circle lines) so the thing runs cooler.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF GM 4-BANGERS!!
Her car probably has a blown headgasket or cracked head.
That yellowish sludge on the oil cap is the result of anti-freeze (coolant) making its way into the engine and mixing w/ the oil (green + brown = yellowish sludge)...
If I were you I would go to Pep Boys, buy some of that Stop Leak stuff for a temporary fix, and sell it to some unsuspecting schmuck.

Or you could dump about $500-$1000+ and get it running right again, just to do the same thing in another 20k miles...

no wonder why i've never owned an american car.

Excellent help guys, thanks for the suggestions. I've visited one of the grand am boards (www.gaownersclub.com) and already been given instructions to read the MIL error codes and post them back over there.

Thanks again,
Justin