.

the car junkie daily magazine.

.

Question Of The Day: Tell Us About The Car With The Phantom Problem!


Question Of The Day: Tell Us About The Car With The Phantom Problem!

You see that 1997 Chevrolet Tahoe making a lukewarm effort to climb the pile of fill dirt in my backyard? That truck belongs to my father in law, and for the last six months, up until yesterday afternoon, we had considered the lumbering beast dead. He’s owned the thing since new. It was the family wagon for years before becoming his personal vehicle. It’s got a 5.7 V8 that’s seen well over 200,000 miles and hasn’t been apart for major maintenance, and other than the typical 1990s paint issues most GM trucks here in the midwest have, it’s a solid old beast. Up until recently, that is. After it’s fuel sending until 86’d itself from the program, the OptiSpark called it quits, and the plugs fouled out, my father in law sank a healthy bit of money into the truck, which seemed to cure most of the ills…for two weeks, before the damn thing just flat refused to start. It’d crank until the battery was flatter than a day-old soda left in the sun, but firing wasn’t in the cards. I suspected that the timing chain had skipped a tooth personally. But a half-hour after I got home from running errands, he brought the tree-sap and acorn-covered Tahoe to my house. The cause of all of the faults: something in the ignition cylinder wasn’t playing along with  the program, but when he switched to the spare key, the truck fired right off like nothing was wrong.

GM ignitions, especially the ones with the VATS (“Passkey” chip system), can be a pain in the ass and temperamental, but that’s not the only kind of gremlin that manifests itself, then suddenly “disappears” with no trace of an issue. Carburetors that seem to magically work after days of running like dog doo, a normally broken electronic component suddenly coming back to life on it’s own…there’s plenty of stories of such mystery fixes out there. I’m going to make sure that I don’t have to put in a new ignition cylinder into a twenty-year-old SUV…meanwhile, tell us your best stories below!


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0

19 thoughts on “Question Of The Day: Tell Us About The Car With The Phantom Problem!

  1. Stich626

    ” After it’s fuel sending until 86’d itself from the program, the OptiSpark called it quits, and the plugs fouled out, my father in law sank a healthy bit of money into the truck, which seemed to cure most of the ills…”

    THIS IS A 1997 GM TRUCK IT NEVER CAME WITH A LT1 SMALLBLOCK.. THAT WAS THE GENII WITH OPTISPARK..
    They had genI small block with vortec heads.. from 96-2000
    with small cap HEI

    Maybe it’s phantom problem is you got no clue of what is under the hood.

    1. sbg

      Opti-spark? I’m now going to have go back and give a solid look at who was to blame in all the stories about terrible auto part store customers…. the problem may be the common element.

  2. Ricky Harper

    When I was a kid I bought a 68 Buick Skylark with a GM 350 and automatic. It usually ran smoothly, but every other week or so, while going up a hill it would massively backfire and blow some part of the exhaust system off. It would then run very rough and be low on power until shut off. On restart, it would run fine again, for another week or so.

    Several mechanics worked on it and all they could ever do was scratch their heads. After 6 months of that nonsense I bought a 65 Mustang.

  3. R Ehlert

    I have a 99 Ford E350 cube van that I bought to move when I found out the cost of renting a van (daily cost cheap, mileage expensive). It did 8 loads before it decided to not start one morning. It refuses to start unless I stick my finger in the idle air control valve, and force it closed, or shoot it with starting fluid, or both. Once warmed up, it runs no problem. I have replaced the IAC, the cylinder head temperature sensor, the fuel pump and filter, as well as a new battery. I’m out of ideas on this one.

  4. Tech

    Looks like the unknown parts counter guy, is lost without the chain parts store drill down..

    Can bangshift do a tech spot on the vortec truck 350 OPTISPARK upgrade..
    BAHAHAHAHAHA

  5. TRD

    Phantom problem
    Vibration at highway speed on a g body, common issue it seems now, but couldn’t have been when they where new, what changed.. You would think with so many with this issue it be a known easy fix, but many chase it for months to years..

    As far as the author,Step away from the G.M. and with head hung low, go back to your Mopar or no car world.

  6. Bubba Smith

    Phantom vibration at Hwy speed on a 94 to 96 GM B body. Changed rims, tires, brake rotors, shocks, u joints, full tune up, new balanced drive shaft, rear axel bearings, road force balance and 4 wheel alignment…even replaced the torque converter. Car still vibrates between 65 and 85 MPH. At this point I’m convinced it’s haunted!

    Oh and as the others have pointed out, you will be hard pressed to find an opti under the hood of that Tahoe 🙂

  7. dirwood

    the opti-spark he’s referring to is the 3 month period after the tune up, then its off to the parts store for another cap and rotor, that crossfire cap was a real p.o.s

  8. Loren

    \’88 350 K Chevy truck, heat-cycling…back-and-forth constantly between 180* and 230-240 or higher no matter the conditions…cost me two sets of cylinder heads as well as multiple water pumps (tried both CCW and CW types and every recommended or possible fix, drove me nuts. The last time it cracked another pair of heads I parked it then sold for a fraction of what I had into it. Next owner changed the whole motor and it still did it. He off\’d it, next owner didn\’t register it and it wound up in impound and nobody including me went to get it. It was a nice-looking truck but I wouldn\’t trust even the scrap metal that thing was probably turned into and my big bro had the same trouble with a similar-year Suburban. The next Chevy truck (\’91 454) also had a horrible overheating problem which nothing or nobody could fix either, put even a tiny load on it and the hotter it got the less power it made and the hotter it got \’til one day the whole thing burst into flames and that was that. Some people have fantastic luck w/ that era Chevys but I drive a Dodge now.

    This is probably the last time the writer throws out the term \”opti-spark\” into a crowd, huh? Yeah, they\’re kind-of a peculiar deal.

  9. Donny Chops

    The speedometer in my 99, C5 Corvette suddenly jumped up to 20 miles per hour more than I was actually doing and now it does this every time I take it out which isn’t much. It’s a very low miles car [19,000] and spends most of the time covered in the garage. I don’t even know where to start looking for the problem.

  10. thefatguy

    the 77 vette that is on HEI distributor #7 in 3 months. new grounds, new power feed, new alternator. changing modules/coils/caps wont get it started, only a whole distributor swap does. suspect its burning pickup–but why?!?!! driving me nuttier than squirrel poo……

  11. Will

    Here is one to top…… Had a 1984 corvette, if the blinker was on and I turned the ignition off, the car would still run in a dieseling kind of idle. Turn the blinker off while the ignition was off, the engine stopped running.

  12. Chevy Hatin' Mad Geordie

    A good friend of mine was a master mechanic who specialised in Mk1 and 2 Ford Zodiacs and Zephyrs. He pulled up outside my favourite bar in his newly-fettled Mk1 convertible. After a quick beer he tried and tried to get it to start with no success. He said there was an intermittent electrical fault that had plagued him for the past three days. I poured half a bottle of beer over the distributor and guess what – the car started at the first turn of the key!

    He later sold the car on as it was costing him more for beer than gasoline just to get it started as the car was taking up to four pints just to turn over….

  13. Pixel

    I had a ’96 Fleetwood that was the worst car I ever owned. Bought it for $4000 and spent another $3000 over six months trying to keep it on the road.

    Among the problems was a mystery no-start where it would crank(and occasionally act like it was trying to start) but would not fire over. Then some random amount of time later (sometimes a few minutes, sometimes an hour after it was towed home) it would start and run perfectly.

    I ended up giving up and trading the thing to a friend for $1000 and a chevy 350. A year later he called me and told me he’d found the problem. One of the main circuit boards was cracked in half, and when the two halves were making contact it worked fine, and when they weren’t touching it wouldn’t start.

Comments are closed.