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94 Grand Am -- What's slowing me down?

I have a '94 Pontiac Grand Am with 140k miles on it. Sometime yesterday while doing city driving I noticed that it seemed to take more gas to keep the car moving... and that when I took my foot off the accellerator pedal, instead of coasting on the momentum I had built up, the car slowed quickly, almost as if it dropped back down into a lower gear and there was some engine brakeing going on.

In order just to keep rolling down my street, I had to keep the engine revved up pretty fast (there's no tachometer, and I haven't really driven a standard enough to know RPMs by sound and feel, but it was way too much engine for the 20MPH I was moving).

Although I considered that maybe it was an issue of my brakes not disengaging when I release the brake pedal, it just doesn't _feel_ like the brakes..

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm happy to provide more info, I just don't know what might be helpful to know.

Thanks!

(By the way, in case it wasn't painfully obvious, I'm not much of a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to my car... I usually leave most maintenance to the professionals.)

Reply to
Eric
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Eric wrote in rec.autos.tech

Possibly have a dragging brake pad, or your emergency brake is on.

Reply to
Dick C

A quick way to check for the brakes being on is to roll to a stop on a slight uphill incline while in neutral. The car should begin to roll backward after stopping.

Also, an indication that the brakes are staying on is if when you roll to a stop (foot off the brake), the vehicle rocks back a little bit immediately after the stop. The number one cause I've seen for GM brakes staying on is a collapsed brake hose not allowing the fluid to bleed back to the master cylinder.

Reply to
hyundaitech

Thanks for the comments so far. Here's some more info that might shed light on the situation:

#1 - About 6 weeks ago I got a check engine light, and brought it in. They diagnosed it as an idle air control valve issue, then "traced and repaired bad circuit."

#2 - Today, I noticed that the severity of the 'drag' problem is proportional to the engine temperature. Not even noticable when the engine was cold, moderate at regular running temp, and truly difficult to maintain speed once it got over the halfway point on my temp gague (220 I think).

The fact that it was heating up so soon would have concerned me, even without the drag. I ended up stopping for 15 minutes to let it cool down, and made it home without incident.

Reply to
Eric

Eric wrote in rec.autos.tech

How is your oil level? This sounds less like a "dragging problem" and more like an engine problem. The dragging is could be because your engine is seizing up. Get it checked out.

Reply to
Dick C

Considering the year of car, I would also check for potential dirt and grease buildup in engine compartment, which may cause electric arching. Arching may be rare but if it happens, symptom is just like as if something is dragging the car, and you have to accelerate much more to keep up your usual speed. It's always good to keep engine clean, especially around distributor and igntion wires. This way you one less one potential factor for consideration.

Reply to
grunt100

Unless the engine runs odd (vibration or something) you may also wish to check the fuel pressure.

Don't count the brakes out if you haven't checked them. Pushrod clearance issues become a problem depending on temperature. A small thermal expansion can cause the master cylinder to keep the brakes applied.

Reply to
hyundaitech

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