Mitsubishi Repair: 99 Galant having problems starting, crank shaft, cam shaft

Question
Hello Linda,

My girlfriends car ran out of gas the other day.  I put gas in it and the car won't start up anymore.  I had it towed to a mechanic and he can't seem to find out what the problem is with it.  He put the car on a scanner and some code came up for it to change the cam-shaft sensor and it also had a bad coil.  This was all done and it still will not start.  He said he changed the plugs too and the car is not getting any spark at all.  My brother said the crank shaft sensor may need to be changed as well and suggested that since the car has a remote starter on it that the mechanic may want to disable that and bypass it and try to start the car that way.  Any suggestions?

Answer
Adrian:Don't be to hard on your girlfriend she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. I would take the car into an AutoZone as they will code the car for free. It would show if there is more sensors or the computer is having problems. You might have to reset the computer to get the car started. Surely your mechanic would be able to do that for you, or AutoZone could too. I know on the older cars, you take the neg. battery cable off for 5 minutes and then put it back on; that is to reset the computer. But if you have not reset the computer it is still running the car with the old problems but now those have been fixed. When is the last time you did a tune up? Oh gee, you say the car is not getting any stark, could be your timing belt has broke. Might get your mechanic to check that. Though running out of gas would not cause that. But if you kept trying to get it started, that might have been hard enough of the timing belt to break it. But then they do get weak and old too. You don't say how many miles is on this car but that could be your problem. But that mechanic could check that too. Hope this helps and good luck!