98 Cobra won't start

Aug 23, 2003 5 Replies

Hello all, My roomate's 98 cobra has been collecting dust on our driveway for the last year.



He drives it like he stole it, so it's understandable that after time, something will break. He started to notice upper-RPM power loss, so he took it to the dealer. Apparently he used a batch of bad gas that pretty much toasted all of his engine's components, and they replaced the engine under warrantee.



And again.



And again.



The dealer checked the fuel filter, fuel pump, injectors, etc., and after dumping tons of money into "let's try this, let's try that" to attempt to fix it, it's still not running right.



As a matter of fact, it won't even start now.



The last thing the dealer tried to charge us for was new plug wires. We laughed in their faces and took the car home.



We finally gave in to curiosity and put on a set of OEM wires, and no go. (duh)



We're at our wit's ends here and we can't really think of anything (other than ANOTHER bad engine) that will prevent it from starting and running correctly.



The engine cranks but doesn't turn over. We recently but a set of Accel coil packs and it still didn't help...



What do you think? Lemon? If so, anyone have any luck challenging FoMoCo and getting them to buy the car back?



Mark


My 98 GT had a non-starting problem. Turned out to be an oxygen sensor broke off & ground against the body of the car pulling 109 amps.

-Mike

engine were "toasted" it would do worse things than just loose some upper-rpm power.

the start motor tries to turn over the engine and cant?

shouldnt be anything "lemon" left inside.

or by yourself, doublecheck the ignition order, take a look at the plugs, check the distributor, check the fuel pressure, check that the fuel pump is running, check the air filter.

*sigh* so many probabilities. Get a local precision tune (if you have one) to hook up a circuit breaker to it & debug. Can get costly though.

-Mike

THAT is an excellent Point!

The PATS system will NOT work in some ECMs!

jriegle,

I have no idea, but that's what they said. It blew a 30A fuse (it's supposed to have 20A fuse) immediately too. Once that O2 sensor was replaced it worked perfectly. Started right up.

-Mike

Dead short in the sensor - it'll pull whatever the battery will supply and the wiring will tolerate - until the fuse blows..

Join the Discussion

Have something to add? Share your thoughts — no account required.

Didn't find your answer?

Ask the community — no account required