I was out of town on business the other day and ran into trouble with my 97 Firebird that left me in such a bad spot I wound-up having it towed to a dealership and spending the night in a hotel. I dreaded the dealership option, but I didn't want to turn my car over to just anybody...
I had left my client's office and drove to a Best Buy. There wasn't even the slightest hint of a problem at this point. I came out of the store, plugged in one of those cigarette ligher AC inverters and turned the key...NOTHING. The radio was ON, but the dash lights were ALL OFF. I removed the inverter and tried again...nothing.
I hooked-up a portable jump-starter, but got the same response...nothing. I checked every fuse inside and under the hood and all were good. I tried again...nothing. On 2 separate occassions I did get the engine to turn-over briefly, but it wouldn't fire. It sounded like it was out of gas (it had a full tank).
In my research in the hotel room I read a little about the security system in the car. Specifially the response of shutting-off the fuel pump and disabling the ignition if the resistance of the key doesn't match what the PCM expects. Does that sound like a plausible cause for the problem?
It seems like an ignition switch would become intermittant before just crapping out. I'm also suspicious of the fact that I plugged in the AC Inverter before attempting to start the car.
Any thoughts on this? (I don't want to be at the dealer's mercy!)
Zack >
97 Firebird Formula
5.7 Liter Automatic SLP Cold Air Induction SLP Ram air hood SLP Shift Improvement Module Hooker Aero-Chamber Muffler