I had my cruise control on and my car started running like crap on the highway, bucking and jerking and running really rough. I started pulling over and I pushed in the clutch pedal and the car completely died. I called the shop and he said it sounded like it was out of gas... He brings me a gas can and the car still doesn't run. Can't get it to start. He finally gets it to start but it won't idle unless you held down the gas pedal. While he has it running he starts driving it to get it off the highway and during that time my radiator splits and sprays coolant all over the windshield. I had the car towed to his shop and now I'm waiting...

Other bits of info that may be helpful...

-Car was repaired by his shop two weeks ago for valve-spring failure, springs were replaced with COMP 918's, one valve was replaced because it made contact with piston

-Earlier that day he replaced oil pressure sender and sparkplugs

-New oil pressure sender stopped working

-This happened an hour after picking it up

-Car battery was completely dead the next morning

-His wife following us that night said the car was putting out black smoke

Obviously I need another new radiator (this one is 4 months old)... Aside from that what could be the cause for the car stalling and running so poorly? I tried to drive it today and while it starts fine now when I drove around the block it still ran rough and nearly stalled out.

 

Replace the battery, if it was low on voltage, could cause issues, but not sure how its related to the black smoke....

Did you pull codes?

Blow a head gasket?

Something wrong with fuel resending unit?

Sounds like your guy doesnt know what he is doing. Id bring it back and tell him to diagnose the issue since it was a non-issue before. Tell him to let you know what it is before he does any more work to the vehicle. If he screwed it up, he fixes it on his dime. If he says its something else, non related to your incident....post it up and we will tell you if he is full of BS or not.

Good luck and cross your fingers....

 

Get a new mechanic .02

 

Did you check mileage in and out to see if this shop maybe took your car out and beat the crap out of it the day they did all these so called "needed repairs" ? That sounds like a lot of issues that are not related.

 

Main symptoms sound like a valve spring failure again!

 

X2

 

Mileage was barely up I don't think he drove it out of his lot... When I have a chance I will head over and check the DIC codes guys.

 

Car is not throwing any codes on the DIC other than for some bulbs that are out and rear defogger relay... I replaced the radiator tonight after the shop had already closed and drove it around the parking lot. I got three messages: ACTIVE HANDLING WARMING UP, SERVICE VEHICLE SOON, LOW OIL PRESSURE. I parked it and that was that.

 

I just got a text from the shop saying: Did compression on passenger side. One cylinder only read 55psi the one beside it only read 40psi. My help will be here this afternoon and i will check out the other side. I am thinking you may need a shortblock. Not 100percent yet though. I will know more this afternoon.

 

2 cylinders adjacent to each other with low compression could be a bad head gasket. I would check that out before buying a short block. However, the shop has to make money, too.