SHO Shimmy, Shudder, Stall... Help Please

[Cohiba]

Hi All,
My 94 ATX has been having some odd, intermittent symptoms lately, and it has me wondering what is going on. Okay, like I said, this is only occasional, but the car will shimmy and shudder, and the tires feel like they're locking up (or anti-locking, I should say), then everything is normal again. This has only happened a couple times, and only at low speed (under 25mph). One time, while my AWA was driving the car, it started to do it's little shimmy & shudder, and then stalled, only to restart after about 5 minutes of not-so-patient waiting, again this was at about 15-20 mph.

Then there is a second sympton, and maybe it's just me, because I'm not used to the ATX. It seems like I need to keep the throttle is a steady position, or the car gets confused and goes into the next gear... a couple times I was slowly going from no throttle to open throttle, and before I even reached 50 mph the car had shifted itself into third gear. Then, sometimes
I'll have the throttle completely to the floor, and it will be accelerating as if I was barely on the throttle, and will shift into the next gear before 4000 rpms.

Could this be the TPS? The RPMs don't surge, and drop unexpectedly, they just don't seem to be right for the amount of pressure I'm applying to the throttle... I've reset the computer, and it still does this on occasion... most of the time it drives beautifully...most of the time. No CE light, and no codes from the computer... Ideas?

<small>[ September 18, 2002, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: Cohiba ]</small>

 

[Slo-Sho]

I take it there aren't any codes?? Just a guess here, but I think your TQ converter is toast.

 

[EZ4U2ENVY]

It could very well be your TQ convertor because mine went and what happend to mine was at a stop if you gave it to much gas it would stall the engine- thats when my tranny was about out(i was on my way to the dealer when this happened) before that the tranny would slip alot and have harsh changing gears... better get that checked out or figure out what is wrong with it if its not the problem... goodluck

 

[Cohiba]

The car has no problem going when I punch the gas from a stop... and like I said, this is only on occasion, definitely not all the time. The only time I've experienced it is at partial throttle under 25 mph. And no... when I checked the codes, everything was normal. The transmission on the car is less than 30k miles old, and there are no other issues, such as grinding or harsh shifts. Just the occasional stuttering on the tires, and the occasional slow acceleration at WOT. Any other ideas?

Somebody on the SHOtimes list mentioned a possible VSS problem... what would be the symptoms of a bad VSS?

 

[Mike Kopstain]

I pulled the codes today... nothing unusual at all... just a pesky 332 (EGR
valve) code, and one time I forgot to push the o/d button during the test, so
I got a 632 that time. I got a 536 once, but it appears the brake lights are
working fine. Am I missing something? I ran the tests several times, and
like I said, nothing unusual, and the car did act up a little bit during a
test drive between tests. If, in fact, it could be the VSS as Mike suggested,
where is this located, and how hard to replace is it? Please HELP!

Gary I just pulled this from the SHOtimes list. IF it is the VSS (not likely if there are no codes present and the problem is this bad) then it is a fairly big pain in the butt to replace. My first tranny rebuild was caused by a Torque converter that decided to self destruct and I remember that one of the main problems was that the car went for overdrive as fast as it could. If your tranmission is covered under warranty I would suggest having it looked at (duh! ). Either way, I just emailed you my phone number. If you want to give me a call tomorrow, I can ask you a bunch of questions and you can describe this a bit more and we can see if we can get it taken care of. Cheers.

~ Mike