So my Brougham is back to bucking and lack of power except now I have codes.

00-23 ...................... Inlet air temperature sensor indicates low air temperature

00-42 .................................................. .... PCM did not detect any EST

00-43 .......................... One or both knock sensors were either open or grounded

00-44 ....................... Left oxygen sensor under voltages (closed loop operation)

01-44 ......................... Steering wheel sensor circuit open or shorted to ground

04-27 ............................... Wheel speed sensor circuit continuity malfunction


Yay, so what the heck is that about. The strange thing is, we discovered that the car runs fine when it's almost out of fuel. As soon as there's a good quantity of gas in the tank it acts up.

Yes, this is the car I just paid $500 to not have fixed

Codewize,

I feel for you - haveing probelms getting my '93 Brougham running too. Was running rough and then just died on me as I got it back to the drive to have a look at it.
Now I can't start it even! The starter just gives one or half a spin and then cuts out.
See my post!
Hope you/ we get them sorted!

regards, Nick

Geez, that sounds more like an electrical (i.e. grounding) problem.

Yeah, has it been raining where you live lately? Could be a serious electrical short aggravated by water.

Actually, LOL, It's been raining like every day.

Now, some of you may not be familiar with a recent episode. Not long ago the headlights stopped working on this car. The mechanic said he found some damaged wiring in the harness behind the dash. He repaired that and replaced the headlight switch. At the same time, we discovered that if the headlights were functional, and you tried to blow the horn, the fuse for both would blow.

So we pulled the horn fuse and called it a day.

Everything has been fine for a few months now.

Then we had this bucking loss of power problem but only had lean codes to go with it. After a week of replacing parts and diagnosing things to find no problems, the car began to run fine again. We wrote it off to bad gas.

Now a few weeks later I have this problem. That's a brief history.

So I'm guessing either the ECM has issues or there's a wiring problem in the harness.

This is were the service manual comes in handy. Maybe someone here can look up what all those sensors have in common. I would make sure all the fuses are the right size. But it sounds like its gonna be a common ground. Did you search this forum for other electrical problems, they are usually hereditary. Your big problem seems to be finding out why everything is shorting, water or rust. I quess they go together

OK today i looked at a lot of the ground point that I can get my hands on. Although they all look fine I did find a couple places in different harnesses that are rubbed through to body metal. Not good, this concerns me.

I obviously resolved those issues but I'm thinking that I have a problem with the ECM itself.

So, the dealer says I have a bad O2 sensor, Knock Sensor and Air Inlet Temp sensor.

The O2 and AIT sensor have been replaced in the last 2 years but they swear they're bad. They also said there's a code for the Ignition Control Circuit and claim that should go away once the ECM has good input from these other things.

I'm not buying any of this. They said worst case scenario I need a new ECM but when they unplug those sensors and / or do and open and closed loop test that the ECM responds correctly.

They also claim there is no ground problem that they can find.

If you have a lot of time to "urinate away," you might simply try to go to the sites noted by the CODES and remove the connecting fasteners (nuts, bolts, whatever) and apply a very small amount of CONDUCTIVE grease like the true NeverSeize Copper to the threads to ensure proper electrical continuity.
This way you can ensure proper electrical bonding and thus rule out any "open" circuit.
It's a painfully time-consuming way to go about it, but it might just work.
I have had electrical gremlins in older cars (1948 Hudson, '53 Studebaker Coupe,' 57 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser, '60 Corvair, etc,) and ended up doing just this.
The way I solved a similar problem on an older boat that drove the previous owner nuts, was to have friends come aboard when the boat was in dry storage and cut EVERY wire and re do the entire wiring system from stem to stern.
After that, not one bit of trouble.
Yes, it's a big pain in the butt, however, it's trouble free thereafter.

Well I've just about had it with everyone and I guess I'm on my own.

The dealer called today as they started working on the car. They got as far as changing the knock sensor. They called me up and said they can't replace the AIR pipe and valve because of rust and that the manifold would have to be replaced.

Then they told me that there's to much rust and they couldn't replace the manifold. Then they quoted us $3800 to do itIF the service manager would allow them to work on it..

So now I have a car that's half apart, another $300 bill, and a car that's still broken.

So isn't this fun. I get BS'ed then they give me the car back without fixing it and still charge me LOL.

Oh then they also told me the CAT was clogged. When I asked them what tests they used to determine that they told me there's no test for that, they just know LOL. This is a dealer. A very reputable large dealer. Oh, they can't replace the cat either because of rust.

Wow, that is unbelievable. Find another dealer? Kinda sucks when you are at their mercy. It's a pain, but working on your own vehicles is nice because when troubleshooting this kind of problem, it's largely your time and not much else that gets burned (ok, scrapped knuckles).

Or, perhaps, time to find a good independent shop. I've talked to many mechanics from chains and dealers and they are very vocal about how much the hate working on older cars. I know 1995 is not really "old" depending on your viewpoint, but the fact is at a dealer 98% of the cars they work on are less than 10 years old. As a result, they don't know nearly as much about older cars, they've already gotten rid of the factory service manuals (which is why they show up for like $25 on eBay!), and there are more unexpected things that happen (making giving estimates a real gamble), and they have plenty of other "easy" business to earn so they basically give you a run around and this ridiculous estimate so that they don't have to work on your car anymore.

Well I picked up the car yesterday. It still has the bucking problem. They replaced the knock sensor and removed and capped the AIR pipe off the right manifold.

I spoke with the tech and told him not to BS me and to tell me whats wrong with the car. He told me that the cat is clogged and if he were going to try to fix the car, that's what he would do first.

Then he commenced to tell me that the reason they didn't continue is that they saw a crack in the frame. So the service manager wouldn't let them do any more on the car.

So I'm going to take a close hard look at things and if I see fit I'm going to pull the cat off and see how it runs. I can tell you I'm not going to be happy if that's the problem since that's what I've been saying all along.

Additionally, my local guy will do whatever I ask him too, he just gave up on diagnostics. The problem now is I'm running out of money so I'm going to have to start doing the labor myself.

If they capped the manifold, they should have been able to diagnose the cat. The factory procedure is basically to measure the backpressure and manipulate the throttle and note what happens to backpressure. It will be pretty obvious if the cat is clogged. They should have done this...

I spent the better part of the day getting the cat off the car. Boy they just don't make stuff like that anymore.

With the cat off the car doesn't seem to buck at all the no SES light. I'll do a little more driving later today to make sure but I just got a quote from a local exhaust guy for $260 to replace the cat and the muffler.

I'm not really happy that I have $800 in repair bills when the problem had a $260 solution.

With the cat off the car doesn't seem to buck at all the no SES light.

Wow. How's your hearing now? :D

I drove my Caprice for a couple years with a gutted cat and no muffler. All I had was the stock resonator. It was LOUD (although a lot louder outside the car than inside), and yet, significantly quieter than starting up the engine with just a dump at the Y pipe.

I got the car back yesterday, new cat and muffler. I'm sure they're not the highest quality parts for the price I paid BUT my wife can drive the car again and all the problems are gone.

Amazing how 3 mechanics, one being a dealer told me it wasn't the cat. LOL. Maybe I'll open a garage since I'm the only one who knows how to fix a car around here.