Sigh... This car is causing me nightmares. So i just got a new engine under warranty. The day I got it I noticed immediately how much power I had been missing on. 6th gear pulls on the highway would actually accelerate! But now, it seems to be back to the way my old engine used to be.

I feel like every day that goes by driving the power seems to go down. I have no CEL and no warm start issues. However, today I was in stop and go traffic downtown, it was 92 degrees outside. So the car started to hesitate, when I would give it gas, the response time is slow and I can hear the air being sucked in the intake resulting in low power. I then got on the highway to come back home and 6th gear flooring was much slower to accelerate.

I dont know if thats related but for the first time since I got my car back, I felt a lot of heat coming in the cabin especially where the pedals are and I could feel a lot of heat from underneath the shifter area and where the cupholders are. Is your car like that in hot temps?

Later I stopped by a friends house for 2 hours, so the car had time to cool down. When I started it back up and started driving it the loss of power was still there but not as bad. I then got on the highway and then it got worse. I could feel heat in the cabin again.

My car has a reman engine with less than 1k miles. Plugs coils and wires were replaced 10k miles ago. The car has 80k miles and its MT. I have the upgraded starter and a new cat dating from 2008. My old engine had frequent misfires and bad vaccuum leaks.

Could it be a semi-clogged cat? I checked underneath and its not glowing red. Or could it be a bad fuel pump? But if the fuel pump would be bad wouldnt it cause lack of power at any temperature? The air pump could be bad and not cooling the cat properly which would cause the lack of power?

I have new oem coils, plugs and wires that I keep in spare. I wanted to install them but I dont want to spoil them by putting them on the engine considering there is a problem that could potentially ruin them. Would a bad fuel pump or cat cause the new ignition system to go bad?

Im tired of wasting money on this car, every month im putting in 400$ in repairs, some type of maintenance or bringing it to the dealer.

Please help me diagnose, im out of ideas

 

It may be possible that the previous bad engine ruined the cat with it. Im certainly no expert but Ive read a few threads about that. Id say try getting a hold of a test pipe and put that on to see if it makes a difference.

Depending on your area, there may be somebody willing to let you borrow one for a few minutes to try it out. Depending on rust and available tools, its not a real big deal to change out.

 

Take it back to the dealer that installed the reman...

New coils/wires are not going to go bad from the engine....

Air pump is to heat up the CAT faster..and only runs for a bit at startu when cold..not your problem

CAT could be.....Fpump..could be...it will crap out at higher loads...might idle and cruise properly but have no pressure for high demand

Could be something they installed wrong as well....back to " take it to the dealer"