Alero Cranks/ no start

L

Lilmuddy

New member
Joined
May 17, 2011
Messages
10
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Attica, OH
Imagine that . .an alero that cranks and wont start lmao (not)! let me give you details on what the car has been doing and then I'll finish with what I have fixed and what I know for fact. The car is a 2001 Alero with the 2.4L and an auto transmission. Mileage is ruffly 118,000.

March 10th: Did a tune up on the car. Replaced air filter, engine oil and filter, and spark plugs. I drove the car from Ohio to Mississippi with no issues. Car ran fine and got 30 mpg on the highway.

April 10thish: Got water on the pass. floor boards (front and rear) and a slightly damp drivers floor boards (front). There was a HUGE rain storm and I believe the water came in through a small hole I drilled at the base of the heater motor. The plastic was holding snow melt, which in turn would freeze the heater motor and then burn out the heater resister pack. Did that over the winter and have had zero issues since. I also have read about the rain ducts not being able to keep up in down pours causing flooding. Dried the floor and all ran and seemed fine. Made the return trip to Ohio and started to notice it was taking a little longer to crank and then start. Was very intermitant . .sometimes it would start right up and others there was hesitation.

April 25thish: Keep driving car, no other issues except for hard to start occasionally. Cranks just fine. Back pass. seat floor board is wet again. WTF?I pull the front seat fully forward and find a large puddle under it caught in between the "humps" Wet vac everything dry and all seems ok. I musta missed that part the first time.

May 1stish: Driving to work, its raining again and I hit a large puddle of water/pot hole while going around a right curve. Car DIES on the move and I quickly throw it in Nuetrel, restart it and carry on with no other signs of trouble or lightes illuminated. A day or two later car is getting harder and harder to start. Long cranks over 30 seconds, sometimes it would start still right away and others nope. takes two or three times to get it to start. Cranks normally and NO dash lights are illuminated.

May 5th: LOOONG cranking required to start after work, finally started but this time the "security" light stayed on. Ran fine, drove it home and had no other signs of problems.

May 9-11: Car starts acting up more and more. Security light is off and has NEVER come back on since. Usually long cranking required to get it started. Once or twice it started up normal, first touch of the key.

May 12th: DEAD, car turns over in its driveway grave but refuses to start.

Over the weekend here is what I have done and I have learned so far:
-New fuel pump and fuel filter. I didnt hear the old one turning so I figured it was bad.
-checked the fuel pump fuse and it has continuity and it has battery voltage to one terminal when key is in the run postion. All good there.
-New fuel pump relay, however still no luck.
- A small shot of ether (starting fluid) will get the car to try to start but it doesnt run. So, I have spark just fine.

I pulled out the haynes manual and studied/high lighted the power circuits relating to fuel. I have learned that the relay controls power to both the fuel pump and to the injectors. I have ZERO voltage to the injectors (gray wire). I will raise the car up tonight and check the harness connector going to the pump (vehicle side obviosly for power). I will also check for continuity to ground both from the relay terminal and from the fuel pump harness. BOTH of these (relay and pump) ground out to a ground splice pack. Ironically the "ground splice pack" also is a source of ground for the ignition control. There seems to be NO power from the PCM to energize the fuel relay but I need a better "pin" to probe the relay slots.

What controls the PCM and tells it to send power to the the fuel pump relay? Where the heck is the ground splice pack located so I can check to see if maybe its just a bad ground? I have searched and searched but nothing solid has been found. I did find that some GM cars have a ground pack located under the carpet (hmm . . mine got wet so did the ground rust and go bad?)

Things I will verify tonight is voltage to the relay or not from the PCM. I will also jump the relay slots to send voltage to the pump and injectors to see if I can get it to run that way. I know this is a long writing but I wanted to give all the info I can so it elimantes did you try this or what about that. From what I gather the alero has known starting issues, from the theft lock, to bad PCM's and also bad ignition key assmblies. Thanks for any and all help.
 
Update . . Last night I started working through the problem again. First thing I did was did the Security system reset ( turn key to "run" and then wait ten minutes, turn to off, give it 30 seconds and then try to start). Sure enough this DID get the cars fuel system working. Could hear the pump turning but wouldnt you know it . .drained the battery just enough to not allow it to turn over. Grrrr . . push the car outside the garage, get out the jumper cables and use the bronco to recharge the battery.

Dang factory corroded cable clamp on the negetive of the bronco was WAY lose and sitting there looking for looks. One more thing to fix.:doh0715: Anyway . . Try to start the car and wouldnt you know. Fires right up. Hmmm, ok so I let it run for 45 minutes to charge all back up. Meanwhile back to the parts store and get new clamps for the bronco. $9 later bronco is fixed and looking much better then the stock setup.

Move cars around, bronco out of the garage and car back in. Turn the car off, try to restart. Bingo . . no problems. An hour later at 10 pm . .bed time but I had the dogs out and decided to check the car just in case. Bingo . . no issues. Awesome . . . get up at 0430 and hop in the car for work and wouldnt you know THE DAMN MOTHER HUMPERNICKEL WONT START. No fuel pump sound, cranks wont start.

I am jumping the fuel relay this morning and taking it to the stealership. Its either in the ingition tumbler or security module. Both of which require GM to reprogram the computer so its beyond my garage level. Sighs.
 
There is a way to jump out of the security issue, see it here. http://youtu.be/EDlLoEOXfCI. It requires an afternoon and alot of bloody knuckles and dropped screws but it works.

You can also just swap out your Ign. switch. They arn't that expensive and not so bad to change. Get the stuff here www.rockauto.com or from your local parts pimp.

FYI, change out the 4 way (Emergency) switch while you have everything apart, they stink and are prone to malfunction. (Slow, fast, no turn signals).

The ign. switches/security systems get a bad rap but really what hammers them it having a big old wad of keys hanging form them as you drive. Put that key chain on a diet after you square this rig.
 
Last edited:
Well, I got the car back yesterday. Its only half fixed. They found water "intrusion" under the dash that was gettig the BCM connector wet and causing corrosion and the pass lock sensor is bad. I had them replace a $10 seal and got ripped for $199 (mostly troubleshooting) in labor plus tax.

Plan is today to start bypassing the passlock and I have contact and circuit board cleaner from work to tackle the corrosion. I wasnt letting them rip me for all the other parts and labor when I can do most of it myself. I'll post back after surgery has been completed.
 
OK . . I was out on vacation last weekend so I tackled this thing this morning with great success. I did the passlock bypass WITH resistors and the car starts with no issues. Wohoooo is all I can say. I'm new so I cant post a link but here is the write up I followed to get the job done. It was wrote up on a Grandam site similar to this one and I take NO credit for the guy (justin1982z28) who wrote it up. I followed it and I'll add some comments when I can to help clarify things. Grand total to repair was $7 in resistors at Radio Shack.
How I did it:

1. Remove the plastic trim from around the radio and heater controls. Do this by pulling gently on it, it is held in place by metal tabs. After it is loose, disconnect the wires to the lighter socket. Then remove the the traction control and emergency flasher light buttons from the trim by unscrewing the three screws that attach them to the back of the trim. You can now set the trim aside and let the loose wires hang out of the way. (Alero is a little different obviously. Basically start taking trim off around the center console, pull of shift knob that is held on by a "U" clip, and get things so you can get the radio trim off. I had enough slack in the wires to flip mine to the passenger side and let it hang there.)

2. Remove the radio by unscrewing the three screws (7mm) that hold it in. You can use a towel to support the radio against the shifter so that you don't have to disconnect it. If you disconnect the wires to the radio, you risk triggering the radio's anti theft. You can safely disconnect the antenna wire so that it can be positioned out of the way more easily.

3. Remove the ignition keyswitch. Unscrew the two screws just above and below the ignition. I believe they are 10mm. Reach in through the hole where the radio was and wiggle the ignition out of its place and into the hole where the radio was as best as you can. As you can see in the pics later, it won't come out very far. Maybe someone else can post regarding how to get it to come out further. I didn't want to disconnect anything. The goal is to get to the wires related to the Passlock II. In this step for an alero you will take off the trim around the instrument cluster. There are 2 screws in the top (7mm) and it clips in place from there. There are 4ea 7mm screws that hold the instrument cluster to the dash which you remove next. I then wiggled the cluster assembly out and laid it on the dash with out unhooking anywires. The 3 wire cluster for the next step is laying right there on top of the ingnition switch. No need to unsrew it from the dash. By pulling the cluster you have enough room to get your paws in there to work.)

4. Find the three Passlock II wires. These wires come out of the top of the ignition. They are in a black anti friction sheath. They are small wires, maybe 20 or 22 gauge. Maneuver the bundled wires where you can access them through the hole the radio usually lives in. Again . . access them through the instrument cluster hole

5. Remove the sheath. I used a razor blade. An X-Acto knife would be ideal. Very carefully cut the sheath back without nicking the wires. You don't need to cut it off, just separate it so that you can pull it back. You should be able to see three wires:
black, yellow, white. You will be working with the black and yellow wires ONLY.

6. DISCONNECT THE BATTERY.

7. Cut the yellow wire. Leave enough coming out of the ignition that you can get to it later or reattach it if you ever want to. Leave enough coming from the car that you can solder to it. Strip back both ends of the yellow wire about 1/4". (I did not have the car running when I did this step and had ZERO issues. I was worried and getting confused with the cutting method and leaving the security light on)

8. Strip about 1/4" of the insulation off of the black wire. Do this in a place where you will be able to solder to it later. Again, use the razor. Take small bites out of it, like you were peeling a banana. DON'T CUT THE BLACK WIRE.

9. Make sure that none of the bare wires are touching each other or bare metal and RECONNECT THE BATTERY.

10. Following the multimeter's instructions, connect one lead to the black wire. Connect the other lead to the half of the yellow wire that is attached to the ignition (not the half going to the car). It will be much easier if you have alligator clip leads for your meter. Insert your key and turn it to run but do not start the car. I did not get any reading at this point. Try to start the car. It should turn over and run for a second but then die. Read the value on the meter. I got 2450 every time I tried it. Your car will likely have a different value, so you have to measure it. OK . . here I had two seperate reading when doing this step. The run and start position gave two seperate reading. I used the "turning over start for a second and dies reading. My reading was 13.75K ohm.)

11. DISCONNECT THE BATTERY and the meter. Make sure the wires are not touching.

12. Use a combination of resistors to come up with a value as close to the value you read as possible. I used a 2700 and a 27000 in parallel to get 2400 or so. I have read online that anything within 50 either way is ok, but I don't know. There are some useful calculators online to help you figure out which resistors to use. YOU DO NOT ADD THE VALUES OF THE RESISTORS TO GET THE FINAL VALUE. I did not use the "parallel" method. I simply tied and solder the ends together, adding up the resistance as I went. NOTE: factor in the 5% +/- that the resistor pack will warn you about. I had to make a seperate trip to get more resistors. Use a multimeter as you go to check the total that you need)

13. Twist the ends of the resistors together so that they are connected in parallel. Use test leads (wires with alligator clamps on each end) to connect one end of the resistors to the black wire and the other end to the yellow wire that goes to the car (not the yellow wire to the ignition keyswitch). Make sure that none of the wires is touching another wire or bare metal.

14. Reconnect the battery and attempt to start the car. It should start normally. If it doesn't, I would guess that you resistors are not of the proper values. Mine started, so I didn't get into troubleshooting.

15. DISCONNECT THE BATTERY and the test leads.

16. Solder 2" or so of 20 gauge (or so) wire onto either end of your resistors. Make sure the joints are very secure. If a resistor or wire becomes disconnected YOUR CAR WILL NOT START. (In this step I soldered all the resistors togther and heat shrinked them as a whole at my work bench. Much easier to do it there then inside the car . I left a little uncovered on each end so I could use heat shrinking crimp connectors to join the the black wire and yellow wires together inside the dash)

17. Tape off the yellow wire coming from the keyswitch. This wire is no longer used.

18. Slide shrink tubing over the yellow wire coming from the car. Solder one of the wires attached to the resistors to the yellow wire coming from the car. Slide the shrink tube over the joint and shrink it.

19. Solder the other wire that is attached to the resistors to the stripped area of the black wire. Using good quality electrical tape (3M), tape this joint so that it is insulated and so that the tape supports the solder joint. (I simply cut the black wire and used the vehicle side of it to solder/crimp connect to the resister)

20. Reconnect the battery and try to start the car. It should start.

21. Slide the anti friction sheath back down over the wires if possible. Otherwise you can use electrical tape to stand in for the sheath. Move the ignition keyswitch back into place, positioning the new wires so that they don't touch anything that will cut them. ( I simply tucked mine were they wouldnt get pinched or cut)

22. Put everything else back together.


Another thing I have learned. My car has been in the garage for a week and still damp/wet under the drivers seat. Mother F#$% . .so I tear the seat out to vacuem it good. I find a floor vent outlet under there for the passengers feet in the rear. Basically the cowl was letting water in and the fan was pushing it to the lowest spot, right under the drivers seat! Fan is running now to dry it for good I hope. Hope this all helps someone as much as it did me.
 
I"M BACK . .Mother @#$%# POS Cock sucking . . . well you all understand.

3 weeks ago it got HOT out here in Ohio and the car started acting "funny" again. Turn the key to start it and I wouldnt here the fuel pump turn on. Started by cranking and not starting like before so thats why I started listening for the pump. Sometimes it will prime right away and other times it will not.

Last week something new started up. Get the car started and put it in gear it would die. This morning I FINALLY get it running (really odd cause last nite it started up twice with NO issues) and take off for work. Town limits (less then 2 miles from home) it stalls. Grrr mother #$%^ . . pull over, throw the hazards on, and after 5 minutes get it going. Made it another mile and got stopped by a train where it died AGAIN. Luckily there was a driveway I got it pushed into. Called the boss and said "not gonna make it" today. Just about to walk back to the house and wouldnt you know it the damn thing started. Made it home and I am now searching autotrader and contemplating tearing out the BCM to check connections there.
 
Only when hot? Might be vapor locking... are all the fuel lines routed properly? They need to be well out of the way of the exhaust and the return line needs to be as well.

What kind of shape is the fuel filter in?

Could be a good ol' fassion 'beat' fuel pump.

TIP: If your car smells a little like diesel just after it quits, that is usually fuel starvation.
 
Last edited:
none of the above I suspect. I replaced the pump and filter both at the beginning of the problem. This new problem is at all temps, 90*+ or even this morning at 68* at 0430.

Tore out the BCM and its corroded. Used some contact and circuit board cleaner on it. Have the car "relearning" itself now.
 
the BCM lies directly beneath the glove box right on top of the foam that was holding water this winter. Remove the black tape and popped it open. Green corrosion wa found on one side of the circuit board. I cleaned the pins, pin connectors and the board. Litely used a pipe cleaner to scrub the "pins" of the card. After reprogramming the car is back to starts sometimes but sometimes not. Its highly unreliable I feel and I am done throwing money at it. All said and done it needs rear brake pads rotors and calipers, front and rear struts and now the BCM. The total in parts is more then the car is really worth. Car is headed to the local junk yard friday morning. I dont even trust selling it to someone else.

Good news is the Mother-In Law is letting me borrow her TDI Passat for the next month. I'll then ship out on mobilization for Afganastan and I'll find something to drive when I return home. Thats the plan . . Thanks for all the help.
 
Car crank no start

Had the same problem with the 03 alero, daughter came home from work parked car went out an hour later and it cranked but did not start. checked this site and decided to simply have it towed to dealership. went first thing in the am was back by 5:00 so with diagnostics charge, new fuel pump, pressure cleaning of the fuel injector train, and oil change, $805.00 after dealer coupons and rebaits on the service and oil change. Runs like a champ except I couldn't get inspection as the bcm was diabled to install fuel pump and the car needed to run 50- 100 miles for computer to relearn its self and for it to put out correct emissions.

this sems to be my average annual maintenance cost for this car, last year it was blower resistor and flasher unit, year befor was a rear suspension knucle, before that was a bad coil and major check up. not too bad given it has a teenager as the primary driver.

What was most annoying about this trip to the dealer was it is a high end GM dealership for Caddy's and Hummers. while waiting for service writer to get to me he kept asking the caddy and hummer owners if he had permission to run their vehicles through the free car was when their service was over or give them a coupon. I sign in the alero and he'll get back to me in a few hours with diagnosis and price to fix. I say OK. I go to pick up car, pay the 805.00 and get a dirty car back.

I told my daughter to go back in and ask for a wash coupon, she was too embarrasssed to do so. LMAO. so I figure I'll run my SAAB through the wash and I mention all the hummers and caddy's get a wash and I just dropped $800 on service on the alero the wash operator didn't blink an eye.

Gotta say customer service just isn't what it used to be these days.
 
Car cranks no start...

I spent a few days diagnosing a similar issue and wanted to give others a heads up. My 1999 Alero started intermittently (one day it was bad the next it was fine) not powering up the fuel pump or fuel gauge when the key was turned to on. It would turn over fine but wasn't starting. Sometimes if I left the key in for 30 seconds the pump would fire up on its own. Sometimes the doors would constantly unlock and the chime would go off each time.
I went through diagnosing relays, the pump itself, passlock, corrosion and grounds, eventually leading me to the ignition switch. When I caught it acting up I voltage tested the pink wire from the ignition switch and saw the voltage jump from 2 to 12 right when the pump kicked in.
$60 later the problem was solved.

Notably this also fixed my engine idle/dying issues after restarting, being fuel related as well.
No-where on the internet did anyone list all these symptoms, so I hope this helps someone else out.

There are many tutorials online for replacing an ignition switch, it's not that difficult. Another note - my speedometer ended up at 140mph after, if this happens to you, unplug it and let it sit (I sat mine upside down, not sure if it matters) for ~15min. It seems to hold a charge and after it dissipates the speedometer needle will drop back to zero.

Now to replace a wheel sensor to fix the ABS...
 
Always good to put more info out there... can't hurt.

It's so hard to help people out on the net, you just can't see things.

Had a D88 with the same problem, bad cables, it pays to keep it simple and start with the basics.
 
I have an 01 alero neighbor gave me. Was sitting for 12 years got it going drove fine. Now it will carnk but not fire but here's the kicker when I plug the scan tool into obd2 it bridges the grounds and fires up. For the life of me I can not find the ground for the PCM though I took the kick plate off and looked around under the dash and have looked in the engine bay. Anyone got any suggestions?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top