Hello everyone.

Just got my car the other day. A 1994 Seville. Put gas in this morning for the first time since buying the car. Drove a few miles and reached up to adjust the temp, just as I touched the temp control I lost my power steering. I was able to drive it to work and park it.. noticed after work that the air is gone as well and the control panel is giving an error code of "Battery No Charge". I thought maybe it was a fuse, but they all seem to be fine.

Any suggestions?

By the way.. I don't know anything about cars in case that isn't obvious by my post. My husband just bought me this car the other day and I love it.. I'm really feeling bad about it having a problem already. Any help would be appreciated. I'm not looking to fix it myself.. just want to know what's wrong with it.

Thanks

Hi, I'm not trying to be a jerk by asking the obvious, but did you check to see that your serpentine belt is still there ? They can break. So can the Idler pulley. Take a look before you get too depressed. It could be that simple.

Hey.. don't worry about asking the obvious, I haven't got the first clue about cars. My husband however did check the serptine belt a bit ago and yes.. that is it. The belt was actually still there, just not on in the right spot. He said it looks like one of the things (sorry.. don't know what they are called) that the belt goes around is bent or misaligned. We'll be taking it in to the dealer tomorrow to have them take a look and fix it. Any idea what the time frame / cost on something like this is?

Thanks for your reply to my post. I appreciate any advice. Like I said, I'm not looking to learn how to fix the car.. I would just like to know what's wrong with it and how long I will be without it while it's in the shop. I really love the car and don't want to go a day without her.

Sometimes people get upset when you ask about the most obvious things. Take for example the time I got fed up with my pick-up stalling every week or so and sold it. Then figured out it was out of gas.
Anyway, of all the pulleys the belt wraps, the most likely to fail would probably be the idler or tensioner pullies. Idlers are pretty cheap, less than $50 I would say, a tensioner would cost more because it's more complicated. Maybe $100 or so, I hope not though. Either of those wouldn't take an hour to replace but that's the minimum time charge usually. Plus a new belt. They tend to get twisted and the edges tear when something goes wrong.
The only other remotely common failure would be the water pump, but that's unlikely. And quite a bit more expensive.
By the way, do you know what engine is in it ? 4.9l or Northstar ? Just curious.

the same thing happened to me a month ago really easy to fix go to the autoparts and get a tensioner which is probably cracked because there plastic replace it with a new one for 10 bucks and a new belt for 20 also its really easy if you look at it good took me about 15 minutes and i never work on this engine before all you need is a 1/2 drive socket set or the dealer will get you for alot more than its worth like maybe 100 dollars for 30 dollar parts and 90 bucks for 15 min work