2005 Cobalt LS coupe
No mods

I drive about 3 miles to work, never have to go over 40mph on the way there. This morning, when I accelerated away from full stop, it would get up to about 2500rpm, shift down, then when it got back up to that level again, would keep climbing. I could hear the engine racing too fast, and it wouldn't shift down. And the engine wouldn't decelerate smoothly once it got up to that level.
This has never happened before

Not what I need today -__-

Any ideas on what could be causing this? There were no check engine lights or anything else going on.

 

Lord. It sounds similar to this. https://www.cobaltss.net/forums/prob...t-20-a-311639/

My car has roughly 115,000 miles on it. We did change the transmission fluid when I bought it at 112,000-ish miles. Replaced the ECM in like January of this year.

 

More importantly, if I continue to drive it 30mph or lower in the city, will it hold out for a couple weeks until I can get a new transmission? :/
I have a buddy at an autoshop looking at it tomorrow and will update this post, but this comes at a really bad time since I need to also move and get my wisdom teeth out in the next month. When it rains, it pours!

 

this sounds very very much like '06 Cobalt problems, RPMs shooting up, have to force to go past 20!" im wondering if we being group trolled now

 

I wish I was only trolling! Just searched for "transmission" after I made this post to see if anything would come up, and with a sinking feeling, found that one.
Never buy a car for $5k unless you want to put the other $9k into it over the next two years, eh?

So yeah, I'm guessing my transmission will need replaced, but I'll get confirmation on that tomorrow. So like I said, my concern right now is... I'm just driving it around the city at low speeds, will it continue to run for a couple weeks that way? What else do I risk messing up if I do that?

 

can you still shift it "manually"?

If you can do that it will hold out for quite some time.

Also try popping it into neutral when your issue is happening then wait a few seconds and pop it back into Drive, see what happens.

Any DTC's?

 

Haven't tried shifting manually. I've only every driven automatics so that didn't occur to me, though in theory I know how to do it >_>
I'll try shifting to neutral, too, and see what happens.
Thanks!

Not sure what DTC stands for?

 

instead of putting it in D when you start off put it in 1. when you get to 2500ish rpm take your foot off the gas and put the gear selector in 2, then when you get to 2500ish rpm again take your foot off the gas and put it in D. see what happens. Don't try it with a car right behind you until you know what is going to happen. If its stuck in first for some reason putting it in D will slow you down quite fast.

DTC = Diagnostic Trouble Code. Is the check engine light on.

 

Kkies, thanks for the clarification.
No, the check engine light is not on.

 

So the good news:
It's given no repeat performances, the transmission fluid is full, still no check engine lights.

The bad news:
SOMEthing happened, but I have no idea what

So I guess I'll just drive it gently until it does it again or dies of other causes, and start saving up for the next vehicle :P

 

Or you weren't paying attention when you pulled the shifter out of park and put it in 2 instead of drive

 

Plausible explanation, but I checked when it happened, and that wasn't the case

 

Okay, so this morning it's just not turning over. All the lights and other electric stuff come on, but turning the key just gets a clicking noise in response, and the gauges do a little dance when you remove it.

So now I'm thinking the alternator is bad. Other possibilities, or should that be my first check?
(Tell ya what, I wanted to learn how to work on my own car, I sure picked the right vehicle)

 

ur battery is dead

 

Yeah, that was my first thought. The second was to check if I'd left any lights on or anything, and I hadn't. Least it was a nice day to bike to work...

This is essentially what it was doing, so I guess if a ground is bad, it would make sense the battery is drained. So I'll try cleaning the grounds and sensors then jumping it, first.

Then if it runs, I'm going to put it on Craigslist for the $2k I still owe on the bastard and buy an asian car

 

nuts to that.

climb under the driver side dash. when you are upside down looking straight up at the bottom of the dash... look to the left of the steering column (would be the right side if you are sitting in the drivers seat) you will see a stud with a 10mm nut on it and 2 ground wires going to it. if you look at the cross-member around the stud you will see burn marks all over the place.

get a drill and 2 self tappers, drill some new holes that the 2 ground wires can reach (1 wire per hole) clean off the ground wires and the new ground holes you just made with some fine sandpaper and use the self tappers to put them in your new holes.

for those of you that havent done this as well, do it, it will save you a lot of headaches later on.