I've got a 98 sunfire. 2.2 L. About 80,000 miles. I have been having problems since May of this year. After a little while of highway driving, the temperature gauge will bounce from 100 - 180 while the car jerks as if I am taking my foot on and off the gas pedal. While this is happening I loose exeleration as my RPM's drop as well. When it first happened in May, and took it to a shop, they said the temp. sensor was bad and replaced that. That fixed the problem for a few weeks. However it is back. It did it again tonight and also while sitting for about 5 or so minutes in a drive thru, the check engine light came on as well as the temperature reaching approx. 200 degrees. The check engine light did go off after I began driving on the highway with the vent open and the heat turned up. Ideas that we have come up with were the temperature gauge being bad? Maybe the engine is reading that gauge and causing the issues to occur? As well as thinking something could be wrong with the fan sensor. I'm just trying to get some ideas to look into before taking it to a dealor and spending all kinds of money to put it on a computer. Thanks in advanced for any opinions or ideas, they are greatly appreciated.
- posted
20 years ago