[Anonymous]

I have a 2006 chevy Colbalt with a 2.2 lt 5 speed man. trans. If the car sits in the rain for as little as a few hours it will not start. It will turn over and tough and spudder but not stay running. If I plug in the block heater and put a lamp with a 40 watt bulb under the hood if I know it’s going to rain, then that seems to keep what ever is causing the problem dry and then the car will start and run with no problems. Mind you this past Sunday night I drove to town (15min drive) to pick my son up from work. It was raining some . The car sat for no longer than 20 min. I started it but boy did it run rough. Coughing and stuttering, the tech needle jumping all over the place. I did manage to get us back home . Plug all the above mentioned things in and now she’ll start fine.
Any thoughts, cause boy is it frustrating.

[Timmy]

REPLY:

Ok, obviously moisture is getting in somewhere it shouldn’t. You’re probably looking at a bad ignition module or coil assembly. You may want to check to see if any wiring has become chaffed or rubbed through enough to cause this issue as well. Check the harness around the fuel injectors and ignition components. Should be an easy fix. You can also have the car running and spray some water from a spray bottle around ignition components and wiring harnesses to see if it acts up to isolate the cause.

[Lori]

REPLY:

I’ve had a the mechanic switch out the coil pak with another one to see if that would fix it and it did not. He has even hosed down the engine area to see if he can make the car act up and that doesn’t do anything.

Another mechanic replaced some sensor from under neith the engine with a used one to see if that would do it. That was back in Sept. and it did seem to work until this past week. Me thinks the used sensor is giving up. But stupid me never thought to ask exactly what he did and what it was he replaced.

Any thoughts on that?

[Protech]

Without knowing what sensor was replaced, can’t really help you. It probably was a CRANK sensor or cam sensor. If the mechanics you are taking it to have a suitable scanner, they can watch the live data stream as your car runs and when it finally does act up, they should be able to pinpoint the problem by watching the scanner.

[Author]

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