I took the hazard switch apart and cleaned it a bit although it looked fine. I found the hazard/flasher relay unit thingamajig where ambrose said it was and it looked fine too. i ended up replacing the fuse with the battery disconnected and it worked after that, so i guess that's what fixed the problem. i'm embarrassed it was that simple, but Ivan was right. thanks!
my flashers work but my hazards don't. the fuse for the hazards is blown, and immediately blows every time i replace it. my guess is the flasher/hazard relay. where is that located? thanks.
The engine is chrysler, and is VERY reliable.. the transmission isn't mitsubish and is also very reliable... demand is high because we have the same tranny as the neon ACR.. which has "performance" gearing in it.
if you base your opinions on a car that you bought used from someone who obviously didn't take care of it.. no offense but don't you think that's kinda stupid?
The stuttering problem you are having is most likely a bad coil pack or the cam position sensor is faulty.
You most likely bought someone elses problem, and paid too much.. but that's a whole other issue altogether.
oh. and where is your oil leak.
I highly doubt that your tranny is the problem.
i actually wasn't aware that the engine and tranny were Chrysler and not Mitsubishi, although this certainly doesn't improve my impression of Chrysler at all.
i have already replaced the coil pack recently, with a brand new one.
i replaced the camshaft position sensor with a brand new one as well, even more recently. a design flaw in the original connector was causing my engine to cut out intermittently.
thanks, but i know how to check the codes. i don't have any at the moment, but my CEL does light up all too frequently.
i paid $2000 for the car, 7 years ago. how much should i have paid?
i don't believe i mentioned an oil leak, unless you mean the oil leaking into the cylinder.
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if you base your opinions on a car that you bought used from someone who obviously didn't take care of it.. no offense but don't you think that's kinda stupid?
i would agree with you--that does sound stupid. however, i don't believe all of my problems are related to the suspicion i have that the previous owner didn't take care of the car. moving on...
anyway, thanks for the input. at this point it looks like darktengu's suggestion makes the most sense, so i'll probably look into replacing the struts, which need changing anyway, even if they're not causing this particular problem.
actually i try to take good care of the car. i change the plugs and wires regularly, and i've changed the coil pack (and a million other things like the EGR valve, catalytic converter, and just about every sensor) since i've owned it. i think one major factor is the car wasn't taken care of by the first owner; i bought it wrecked and it had 114K miles on it. i'm sure they weren't too kind to the transmission. when it blew, we took it out and saw that it wasn't even the original tranny in the first place (which is why i said i'm on the 3rd transmisison).
i wouldn't claim to know tons about cars, but i know my fair share. i think another huge factor in my problems is poor design. this is only my 3rd car, but the other two were much older and cheaper and i didn't have nearly as many problems with them as i have had with this one. i have been told (by more than one person, all who work full-time in the automotive industry) that the 4-cylinder engine and the 5-speed transmission that Mitsubishi put in these cars weren't designed well and sometimes don't last very long. the salvage yard i used to work at couldn't keep them in stock, and they sold them for a pretty high price compared to other engines and transmissions because the demand was so high. i remember the guy who rebuilt my transmission telling me about some of the plastic pieces in it. plastic? in a transmission? again, i'm not a car expert, but that just sounds awful to me. more like cutting corners than anything else.
...not trying to use that to make an excuse, but i take good care of my car, and the CEL still comes on probably about once a month. i wonder if the fact that it burns oil like crazy doesn't help, but i don't imagine the previous owners changed the oil very regularly, something which i make it a point to do. i've definitely had more than my share of problems with this car. i love the looks and the way it drives, but in terms of reliability it just sucks. i'm pretty positive i'll never own another Chrysler or Mitsubishi car ever again.
but anyway, i don't actually have a misfire problem right now. it seems to be running just fine, but it's definitely a problem that seems to occur all of the time, once i've just finished fixing it or some other problem. but i'll definitely look into some new struts for the thing. seems like sound advice.
it's funny that you mention suspension, because i'm pretty sure the front struts are shot. they make the most awful noise sometimes whenever i am turning or hit a bump. i had honestly not planned on replacing them because i'm not sure how much longer the car is going to last and i only want to put money into whatever is going to keep it running until the engine/transmission blows up. would that actually affect the car's ability to move? because it seems like sometimes the shuddering gets so bad i feel like the car is going to quit moving forward. i asked around when my struts started making noise and i was told that other than that, they would probably just give me a bumpier ride, but then again, those people didn't own Avengers...
the car does give me CEL codes all the time saying that the engine is misfiring. i normally end up changing/checking spark plugs and wires, cleaning contacts, and spraying some intake cleaner in the intake, and most of the time that does the trick. are these cars just designed really terribly or is it more of the fact that my car has so many miles on it and burns lots of oil?
i don't know why but i had trouble logging into the site, so i just created a new login.
...anyway, i just thought i'd post an update. i changed the camshaft position sensor, and that fixed the problem that was causing it not to start. i figured out that it wasn't the CmPS itself though, it was the connector. somebody must have figured out that these things were designed poorly, cause when i got the new one it came with a new connector with a completely different design, so i had to replace the old connector. once i did that, the car started just fine.
i was still having the problem where the engine was cutting out at high speeds, however. so we looked at the timing, and sure enough, one of the cams was off by a notch. we fixed that, and that seemed to do the trick. ...although my water pump broke immediately after that, making me wish i had done it when i had the timing belt off in the first place. with over 200K miles it was due to be replaced anyway, but i just didn't think about it at the time.
thanks again for everyone's help, esp Nykon who hit the nail on the head with the timing belt thing.
i have a 5spd (I4) Avenger, and whenever I take off in 1st gear, the car shudders and makes a "popping" noise and jerks a little bit. that's the best way i can think of to describe it. it doesn't do it every time, but it only does it in first gear. does this sound like a tranny problem? it's a 96 with over 200K miles on it and it's on it's 3rd transmission (technically 2nd cause i had the last one rebuilt). i changed the axle shafts a while back thinking that may be the problem but that didn't change anything.
i want to say it does it more when i drive it for longer periods of time, but i'm not completely sure of that because it comes and goes. a couple of times it has gotten so bad that i wasn't sure it was going to get it to go anywhere at all, like the other day when i was driving up the ramp of a parking garage. any ideas? thanks.
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