Subject: Car died going down the road
Cindy asks: My car died while driving down the road. It was very low on gas but the gas light hadn’t gone off yet and I was headed to the gas station. I put at least 3 gallons of gas in it and it still didn’t start. It is turning over good just not starting.
Someone came and looked at it and checked the coil packs. He said one was bad but then put the one he thought was bad on the other side and it sparked so now he thinks there is something keeping one side from sparking and thinks both coil packs are good. I drive a Mitsubishi Gallant 2000.
My question is what do you think could be causing one side to work and the other side not to. I’m sorry if it sounds confusing but I don’t know anything about how cars work. I’m just a single mother trying to get my car running. Thank you for any advice you can offer.
Cindy, I am confused just a little not knowing which problem to approach. I don’t know why someone would check coil packs when running out of fuel was the first problem to begin with.
You need to find out if you have fuel reaching the injectors first. Have your friend come over and see if he can determine this by checking the schrader valve on the fuel rail. You should get plenty of pressure there. Please be very careful not to get fuel everywhere and light a fire.
You may have burned out a fuel pump but not real likely. He may need to just bleed air from the fuel rail. There is also a fuel pump fuse to check but should not have blown at that exact time either. Make sure there are no trouble codes that kicked in resulting from the empty fuel operation. If your getting fuel at the rail then he may need to check voltage to the coil packs with a volt/ohm meter if this seems to be an issue. I don’t know what else to tell you Cindy.
Good luck…
Dave
Add A Comment