Help Please

[PJKlos]

Hello,

I have a 2005, 5 speed manual PT. I'm the computer nut in the house and my husband is the mechanic so I'm posting this question. Forgive me if I don't know all the car stuff like he does. About a month ago, while I was driving on the highway, my check engine light went on and the car died. I was able to get it running again, creep along the emergency lane and get to a town. I turned the car off, sat for awhile, turned it back on and it was fine. I've been having this problem off and on since then. My husband got the car on an analyzer and it came up with a camshaft error code. I've been seeing in prior posts how some Cruiser's have had problems with wires being too close to the engine and burning up.

My husband worked on the car last night and asked me to post this question. The car has a 2.4B. He said he can't see any wires down by the half shaft that might be burning up. He did also tell me that when he was first looking at the camshaft that the wire connection made a loud click, like he got them seated into the camshaft better. Is it possible that this connection was just loose and causing problems? I was able to run the car for more than a week at a time without any problem and then it would pop up again.

Thanks for any assistance.
Pamela

[CREWZIN]

Welcome to the forum. I would just have to guess, but I'd say your husband has probably found the problem by re-seating the Camshaft plug. That would certainly cause the problem if it wasn't fully seated and the "click" sounds like it wasn't fully connected.

There are other problems that can pop up that give the same Camshaft code (timing belt) but hopefully you've found the problem with the connection.

I was the one who had the Camshaft wires burned when the 10 cent plastic clip gave way and let the wires dangle to close to the front halfshaft.


Good Luck.

[PJKlos]

Thanks very much. Since the car ran just fine for over a week at a time, I'm hoping it's not the timing belt, but we will keep an eye on it. I know my husband has been looking at the OBD analyzers and maybe if he gets a better one, we can figure out a bit more.

I really appreciate the quick response. I love my Cruiser and am tired of driving the old minivan to work.

[Hooligan]

PJ, welcome to the Forum. How many miles do you have on your PT? The reason I asked as you mentioned the timing belt. Normally you don't have to mess with that until around 100,00 miles.

[PJKlos]

I only have about 76,000 miles on the car, so I agree. I don't think it is the timing belt. Hopefully the camshaft connection is good now and the problem is gone. Thanks.

[PJKlos]

I experienced the same problem this morning coming into work. Driving on the freeway, engine light goes on, car starts to run very bad. Pulled off the freeway and got into work, but if the car gets over 2 rpms it jerks and dogs something terrible. I think we need to buy a better analyzer and get a reading. The problem originally started about a month ago right after I filled up my gas tank in a small town. Initially I thought it might be bad gas, but I've gone through a couple of tanks of gas now and the problem is not going away.