Blonde has problem with red coupe

My daughter is having some problems with her "5 year old" coupe. I
can't help much because my Saturn is 12 yo, is a station wagon, is
white, and has a stick shift. In her own words:

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The vehicle, a rather small coupe less than five years old, has had one
previous unknown owner. The dealer, of course, fed Diane the line about
"She was just an old lady, always drove it real slow like..." and she
bought it hook line and sinker. I"m a bit skeptical. The engine has a
bad habit
of skipping/stuttering when coming out of a standstill, and the gears
(Automatic) don't always mesh perfectly when it shifts. Neither one's
been
that frequent, but today...and it's a balmy 45 outside, with plenty of
idling time so I know the engine was warm, it made an awful high pitched
buzz/whine starting from a stoplight up a slight incline. It sounded
like a
small electric motor without enough load.

Somewhat startled, I picked a back road and managed to get the incident
to
repeat itself on a downslope, this time without even a complete stop.
It
was lower pitched and slower, but still unnatural.

My guess is the carberoator needs clearing? Any other theories? We
recently put a tank of Premium gas into the car to try and clear out the
stuttering problem. It takes a rather firm push on the gas to make it
buzz
like that, but not enough to 'jackrabbit' the car.

===================

Any help or ideas greatly appreciated

 

Hi and welcome. To begin, as you only said coupe, it is either a SC1 or SC2
model. Saturns dont have carbuerators , um as most modern cars dont, all
fuel injecion and throttle bodies but you may be on the right track as far
as that.

First of all, are there any lights flashing on the dashboard, like "service
engine soon"?
That is an engine computer code saying that you need service.

No need for primo gas, Sattys dont need it and really wont make much
difference. I suggest removing the air cleaner and cleaning the Throttle
body out with TB cleaner, inspect the air filter, replace if neccessary.

If that doesnt do it, you can try putting Chevron brand Techron fuel
additive in the gas with a full tank (you can get it at any auto parts
store). Saturn has a brand called BG which works well too.

If all fails, have the car professionally checked out. It could be a fuel
filter, tune up or minor part gone bad, who knows? FYI- It would be wide to
know what yr and exactly how many miles the car has so you can know what
services are needed on a periodical basis.

marx404

 

Early valve body problems?

 

Skipping and stuttering usually means plugs and wires (99.9% of the time
it's wires). The squealing means belts.

 

On the plugs and wires, these were my thoughts exactly, although a good
throttle body cleaning and replacement of the air (and fuel) filter wouldn't
hurt either. Same for the fuel injector cleaner additive as well.

The OP said it is 5-years old, but gave no mileage so it makes "guessing" at
the cause a little more difficult.

Bob