Hello Everyone. I appreciate you looking at my thread. And all opinions, advice or whatever is greatly appreciated. Now to give a little back story...
Hi, I'm Rachel 25 and I am not a mechanic but I'm good at following instructions and mechanically inclined. This is my nightmare..
This is my first car ever 06 Lt Automatic I got her almost 8 months ago and she's pretty much factory everything but stereo I believe.(Again I know almost nothing-ish)
K got her pre-owned for $800. After getting title tags registration and everything I made it roughly 3 miles down the road when all hell Broke loose. Locks started locking and unlocking by themselves, interior and head lights flickering like crazy, rpm's jumping, and it was acting like the tranny was slipping I think.. it'd rev up and drop over and over but wasn't getting into gear. Tried to get my money back but yeah anyways.. took her to a GM shop.. it took a week and $160 for them to tell me nothing. They couldn't get her to do it again after running some test and having her on a dino. Drove home no issues so I just thought maybe she hasn't been driven in awhile or whatever. Couple days later it happened again but even worse. Took it back and same thing they couldn't get it to do it again. Long story shortened after allot of stress, $320 for nothing and a just ridiculous amount of time online.. I found that it could be a couple things. 1. Water leaked in and behind the door panel and pretty much the electric lock cylinoid needed replaced 2. Something was up with the stereo's factory wiring harness. 3. A GPS shut off system was put on at some point but never taken off. 4. A loose ground wire.
I figured I'd start simple and I pulled the auto lock fuse. And my dad helped me do ground wire work. Worked for like 2 weeks before it started acting possessed again. I pulled the stereo out and the previous owner had cut off the wiring harness and had some medusa like duct taped rigged wiring job from hell. (Explained why the radio wouldn't work at accessory only on and to are steering wheel controls didn't work.) So I went to my local pick-n-pull (new best friend) and got the wiring harness, a bezel, and center console cause mine was broke and put the two pieces in and found a wiring diagram online that showed me what to do and did it. Steering wheel controls work and it works at accessory now but it didn't fix her. Looked online and found what I was going to be looking for with the GPS shut off system an be found it took forever but I got it out and ignition wire reconnected right(whoever put it in was an idiot and had the ignition wire cut almost to the fire wall, I had maybe an inch-inch and a half to work with so any suggestions on that would be awesome). It didn't work either. Replaced The electric lock cylinoid on both doors put in a new fuse and wa-la fixed. Her exorcism complete; Pulling the fuse and replacing the part was not the same thing and I know that now. So 3 months after I bought it I finally fixed her. Maybe 3 weeks after fixed found out my steering rack and pinion had a bad leak. Lost complete control of steering. It was scary. Went back to the the pick-n-pull and got one off a totalled ion that had just had there's replaced luckily (I know all compatible cars now too from all this) got it on and had it checked at a shop to make sure I did it right. A months later driver side strut broke completely. I made my cousin that lives 7hrs away come "visit" cause he's a roadside diesel tech and together we got new shocks and struts on and spark plugs in. He also told me that my fuel pump sending unit was going out and that some ******* jacked the car up at the tranny pan and crushed it in.. not me I didn't own a jack also I did know my jack points. Sending unit still going out cause I have no idea if I have to replace the entire fuel pump or if I can just replace the sending unit and it's like 50/50 everywhere online I looked but a trip back to my trusty pick-n-pull and I got a new pan and fluids all topped and I accomplished my very first oil change. Not that I've driven enough to need one but figured the previous idiot didn't do it. Couple days after all that I blew both back tires at the same time going over some tracks and fucked my passenger rim up bad. Luckily my cousin was still in town to help me cause I had to jack and the spare that was in it looked good laying in it but after pulling it out found a massive hole. (also I seen my battery was back there which I had no clue) So 1 new rim unfortunately (pick-n-pull isn't allowed for some reason) and 2 really good used tires for a steal they look brand new. Now I have no clue what it is and my cousin doesn't really do cars to know what's going on but its not every time when I go to break my pedal gets really hard and I can't break right. If I try to break regularly it makes my car shake hard af so I have to kind of pump the brakes. But I noticed it's only sometimes, usually hitting interstate at a cold start and after about 60 mph. My car will shake like I blew the tire again for a second then stop after 68mph and then have to pump the brakes to slow cause it shakes so bad. Not everytime either. I've had the tires rotated, aligned and balanced about 6 times now and I blew the brakes but it still does it. I've sunk every dime I've had in this car, I refused to abandon ship, I just got a brand new transmission free and I've looked into how to rebuild engines too and I'm at the point where those are the two things left to ruin my life really. I have all wheel bearings coming in and my cousins gonna come back down and do them for free for me and he's an a frame welder so I'm kinda set if she needs frame work done and I kinda don't want to loose her at this point. It's been a total nightmare with her but 8 months ago I knew how to jump a car, change a tire, check and refill fluids and now I know allot more so it's gotten personal. But I wanna ask other Cobalt owners there opinions on how much worse it can get, about the braking issue and the fuel sending unit...

Ok, well thank you for reading all that and I appreciate any response.

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