My brother's car has a strange proble.
Here's his description:
Driving around town speeds, the engine will start running rough, the low coolant level light comes on, and the check engine light comes on also.
He also said at that time the brakes act funny and the transmission shifts hard. This occurs randomly, about 5-10 minutes after startup. Sometimes it will go for a week without acting up. He took it in to a shop, and they diagnosed(?) a bad TPS. They changed it, at the cost of >$200, for diagnosis, labor and the TPS. It's still acting up. I went over and tried to check it out. I thought thermostat/water pump. I changed the thermostat, took off the serpentine belt and spun the water pump by hand. It wasn't weeping out the hole, and no rattles or looseness. I put the belt back on, filled it until the bleeder above the water pump started dripping, and started it up. I bled the air out of the bleeder above the water pump and closed it. Before the gage even got to normal, and the thermostat could open, the car died. At the time it died, the radiator fan(s?) came on. I restarted it, and it ran really rough, then the engine idled up to about 2 grand for a second or two, and idled down to normal speed (and smoothness). The thermostat opened after a little while and I closed the bleeder above the thermostat. I then topped off the radiator, shut it down, and filled the coolant reservoir to the proper level.
I have a few questions.
1) Why did the fan(s?) kick on when it died, when it wasn't even hot enough to open the thermostat?2) Why the roughness and fast idle for a few seconds?
3) Any ideas why it's acting like this?He bought the car from a friend's mother, and he got a stack of regular maintenance records, and all repairs that were done at the GM dealer.
I looked through them and found no abnormal repair receipts, just an EGR valve, alternator, and a front wheel bearing, other than normal wear items. The car has 93k miles.
It truly is a grandma car, excellent interior, body, etc.