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My '97 Chevy Malibu 3.1 L 6 cylinder is having problems?

One day my car just died, when I got it home I tried to start it and it took a few seconds while it slowly cranked into life and when it got cranked into life it would die after few seconds of running it, the engine would start to get slower until it finally conked out, and also while it was running it sounded rough, almost sounded like one of the spark plugs wasn't firing and after trying to figure out what it was wrong with it the starter died, i would try to start it and when I turned the key the belt in the engine would move a little bit and it would stop and like when you start a car and the engine chugs well it just chugged once and died, also some car history it has 150K miles on it and I just recently replaced the power steering pump which means I had to take of the serpentine belt to replace it, and also while I was driving it before it died at certain times it felt like it got no power like all the acceleration had disappeared, could it have been the starter causing this problem or could it be the alternator or both, I tried changing the cam sensor and it did nothing but I did not try replacing the crankshaft sensor any and all ideas would be helpful but do not tell me to ask autozone because the one I went to told me that it was the cam sensor that was at fault but found out it wasn't, and after that they had no ideas.

2 Answers

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  • 8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    It seems that when you replaced the power steering pump, you did not tighten the serpentine belt properly and the alternator is not charging the battery. So in the end, you have killed the battery. Jump start the car and take it to an Auto Parts store to have the battery and alternator checked out.

    Source(s): 30 yrs home mech and Mech Eng
  • 8 years ago

    Check your COOLANT LEVEL! Gm egniens tend to get BAD INTAKE GASKET LEAKS after about 100k miles. CHECK RESERVOIR for signs of SLUDGE and remove the CAP and flip it over! check the RAD level. There is a LARGE chance that your engine is NOW EATING COOLANT! it happens to nearly ALL gm engines ! Type DEXCOOL into BING or YAHOO! and see what happens. GM was SUED BIG TIME Secretly over this issue. I STILL to this day do NOT KNOW if they ever dealt with it CORRECTLY! GOOD LUCK, IF car wil RUN for you get yoru IDLE ARI CN+ONTROL VALVE and throttle body CLEANED UP! they FINE TUNE The air entering the engine. IF you are DARING remvoe yoru INTAKE MANFIODL and check for DISSOLVED gaskets. ANy AUTO PARTS store knows about this issue. I HOEP for your sake that yoru COOLANT LEVEL is GOOD and HIGH! BEST of luck to you!

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