QuestionMy seville starts really good in cold weather, block heater plugged in or not, and runs smooth, but stalls about 5 min later as if the key was turned off. The fans etc.keep running. upon restart the motor does not stall. The dealer per message codes changed both crankshaft position sensors and the camshaft position sensor.This did not help. The car and motor runs very smooth with lots of power and good gas mileage. What could be the cause of this?
AnswerHello,
There is no textbook answer to your question. To make things worse, you have now thrown in another variable of dealer technician's hands being in the vehicle. If they diagnosed that you needed the parts you had replaced, it is on them, because they had the physical interaction with your vehicle.
This problem will not be fixed over the Internet, as much as I would like to assist you.
I strongly advise people to stay out of dealers to service their vehicles, because from my experience, they are only going to change parts as far as your wallet will afford and in most cases, never fix the actual problem.
You may want to take the vehicle to a reputable local service center. They have the same equipment and in many cases are more knowledgeable than dealer techs.
You need to realize that your vehicle is 14 years old. Many dealers do not retain diagnostic information on this vintage.
You could have taken the car to autozone and they could have given you the same computer diagnostic codes for free.
Most people are under the old line of thinking, in which the dealer knows these vehicles better than anyone else. I worked for GM dealers for 11 years and I knew what I had for techs. On this site, I have yet to hear over the last 15 years anyone that has had a good experience with a dealer when it comes to repairing a problem.
Service centers try harder because their name is important to them. They can't afford to just start changing out perfectly good components.
Diagnostic codes can be misleading. Just because a code comes up, does not mean that is the problem. Something else in the circuit could have displayed this code.
I do have a question though. Did they get the codes from the vehicle, or did they use a Tech II scanner connected to the OBD II port of the vehicle? That in itself could make a tremendous difference for diagnostics.
Fortunately, you are not like the last person that wrote me a couple of months ago that was a victim of a dealer paying out over $2,000.00 for repairs that did not work, but also for components that could not by any stretch of the imagination be related to the owner's complaint.
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