hey guys, out of no where today my cavalier started lunging while driving. randomly it will start lunging and bucking while driving down the road with just my foot on the gas. It feels exactly like someone learning stick for the first time and bucking the car on take offs but this is doing it just rolling down the road. the car has a new fuel pump with 10,000 miles on it, brand new spark plugs, air filter, fuel filter, idle air control, and spark corks/wireset. It is stalling at stop signs and lights as well and the exhaust is crackling when I start to slow down or take my foot off the gas. the fuel pressure while idling is at 53psi, when i rev it in neutral the exhaust doesn't look rich. It idles smooth but occassionally if I rev it in neutral it will stall. currently watching the fuel pressure with the motor off to see if the injectors are leaking. Im thinking its an o2 sensor since the only time the check engine light came on was for the o2 sensor months ago but it turned off and hasn't came on since. any ideas?

Hi Tyler. I saw your post on the other forum and thought I would try and give you some help. I did a little research and found this YouTube video which may be your problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_7_CoGdEBc

Let me add this disclaimer; you mentioned that you just changed a bunch of parts and started having the lunging problem afterward. In my experience, that usually means that something that was replaced is not working properly or during the parts change, something close by was knocked or broken. Money is tight and you don't want to change parts needlessly, so you have to make a decision whether to have a mechanic diagnose the car. This is when the trouble shooting section of the service manual comes in handy. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Hey again, got it fixed. the ignition coil cover cracked causing the ignition coils to short and not make it to the plugs. All the work I did previously was done about a month ago, since then the car has made weekly trips to New York from Connecticut and back so it must have just been on its last legs. Thanks again

You are very welcome! Corny as it sounds, the coil packs were going to be my second guess. Especially after seeing the video on ignition trouble-shooting. You got it isolated and repaired without the assistance of a mechanic. That saved you some pennies! Hopefully it will last you quite a while. I am very happy with my 2001 2200OHV. I bought it a year ago with 87k miles on it, and it has been a great commuter car. It is a base model coupe, so no tachometer, but it's an automatic and I don't go much faster than 70 out on the freeway. For what it is, I feel it was a good purchase.

Yeah, was about to say that it was the battleship. It is good to keep and extra one in the trunk.