325: Not Charging, No Power Steering, Stalling, & No Codes... This Sounds Familiar

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Hey, what's going on?

Automotive World.

Welcome to another episode of the Automotive Diagnostic Podcast.

My name is Sean Tipping, and I'll be your host once again for this week's episode.

Thank you so much for joining me.

I got just me on the show this week.

We are going to have a guest on for next week's episode.

But today, I want to talk about a car that I diagnosed this week.

But it's also a throwback to July of 2020.

I had just started this podcast.

It was episode number 28.

I did a case study on a 2016 Chevrolet Cruze with a 1.4 liter turbo that had some really

weird issues.

And it was an interesting fix.

If you haven't been listening to the show for that long, maybe you haven't heard

it.

This is going to be all new information to you.

If you have been listening for a long time, it's been a while.

I actually had to pull up the episode and listen to it to hear all the details.

As it turns out, the symptoms that I had on the car this week were exactly the same, like

identical.

A different car, slightly, but same era and same problem, although this one was a little

bit of a different scenario.

So I'll explain.

So first off, if you want to check out the earlier episode, again, episode 28, I'll

put the link in the show notes.

This was pretty early on, but I walked through how I found the problem and it was actually

an IETN post that got me there.

I was kind of lost and maybe I would have found it eventually, but it would have taken me a

lot longer than it did because someone else had already gone through the work.

But maybe I can be that for you now.

So anyways, what it ended up being on that Chevy Cruze was that the shop had just swapped

the motor and they had the wrong crankshaft sensor in there.

Now that sounds easy enough to diagnose.

We've seen problems like that on cars before where the wrong sensor gets put in.

There's maybe two different crankshaft reluctors that could be used in one application.

There's like a mid-year split and the engine will bolt in, but the pattern is different

between the two engines.

And so if you don't get that correct, well, the computer's not going to start the

engine.

We've seen that across different brands even on a, what was the one recently, there was a

Ford engine that was installed and they put the crankshaft reluctor in, but there was a

switch between a VR two-wire sensor and a Hall Effect sensor in that year range and

they got the wrong one.

So it was outputting a signal.

If you scoped it, you saw a pattern, but it wasn't right.

The computer wasn't expecting that.

It was looking for something completely different.

And so it wasn't going to start from that.

Now there was some harness stuff that was messed up on that one too, but anyways, we see these

kinds of problems.

Missing tone wheels, that's another one where, you know, that sandwiched in between the

crankshaft and the flex plate and oops, we forgot to put it on there.

That's going to be an issue.

Again, just wrong sensor, bad sensor.

We get these things with engine swaps, but this one was a little bit stranger.

So I'm going to walk you through the symptoms here.

And I should probably set up the vehicle that I'm actually working on this week.

It was a 2017 Chevrolet Malibu with a 1.5 liter turbo.

So different engine, although the same family of cars, it's a 16 to a 17 and a 1.4 turbo

and a 1.4 turbo to a 1.5 turbo.

So a little bit of a difference there.

It's not like the parts are interchangeable between the two engines, but again, it's kind

of the same era and family of vehicles.

So what I'm dealing with on this Malibu, and again, this is mirror image of the cruise

as well.

So the symptoms could just be transferred over to one, but I'm going to list through

what I was experiencing on this vehicle.

And it took me a minute to remember like the grouping of symptoms together was exactly

the same as the thing I dealt with.

As I was going through it, I'm like, something really seems familiar about this.

I remember, you know, this exact grouping of symptoms happening on another car.

And that's when I looked back in my notes and I was like, oh, that's right.

I got to look for a blank.

Here's what it was doing.

Here's why it's weird because this is a very strange combination of problems to

have no codes present anywhere in the vehicle indicating that there is something wrong

when there clearly is something wrong.

So first thing, the engine will start and run now.

It's strange the way that it does it in this application.

And this first one, actually, I don't recall on the Chevy cruise that I did.

So maybe there is a slight difference here, but I'm going off of what I saw

this week, maybe I did not note this detail back in 2020.

But when you went to start it, the engine would start.

However, this is a push button vehicle.

When you would release the push button, you could still hear the starter

dragging against the flex plate, the teeth on the flex plate.

Like it was still halfway engaged or like the drive pinion was still

rotating along with the flex plate, which it should not be once I release

that button. And, you know, now that I say that out loud,

I wonder if the cruise was a blade style key.

This was a push button.

Again, don't know that for sure, but I don't recall a starter dragging being the

issue, but this one was.

And then if you would hit the button again, the start button on the dash

for this Malbu, then it would stop, but the engine would continue to run.

OK, so then at that point, your engine is running and everything

seemingly OK at first, except for there is no power steering.

And this is electric steering.

Other things, and these take a little bit more work to notice that this is

the case, but I'm giving you a listing of symptoms that you can find on a car.

You can add these things up and you can say, I know exactly where to go.

So the other things that occur on the vehicle are you have no power steering.

The charging system does not work, or at least it doesn't charge

up to the level it's supposed to.

I didn't sit there long enough to see if the battery would discharge

completely, but it would sit at about 12 volts the entire time.

So I don't know if the alternator was doing anything.

I don't think it was, but it definitely wasn't charging where it needed to be.

It was at, you know, 12 volts, which was to be up over 14.

But we have no warning lights, we have no codes.

And on the cruise, I had mentioned, if you unplug the alternator

in that application, it would start, it would fall field and it would charge.

So the alternator was capable.

And funny enough on this Malbu, when I got to the shop,

they had been working on it for a while was the alternator had already been replaced.

So somebody had gone down that route.

I think they didn't mention that to me, but somebody had put a brand new

alternator in there, probably trying to fix this charging issue.

And when I looked at this, the cruise back in 2020, I thought that was my issue.

I'm like, Oh, okay.

Well, this is why the power steering doesn't work is because the system

voltage is not where it needs to be.

Well, turns out that is not the case.

There are other electrical signs on the vehicle as well.

The rear defrost and if it's equipped with heated seats, those do not operate.

You can press the button.

Nothing happens.

It does not allow you to operate those components.

And there is an idle surge.

So every 34 30 to 40 seconds, you would see the idle surge up, come back down.

Um, finally on this Malbu, if you were to put the transmission into gear,

then the engine would stall, but if you left it in park, it would run all

day long with a little idle surge here and there.

Um, but that would be it.

And again, scan it, no codes at all.

You can do this every single time.

And I tried to get a little history on the vehicle for this one to see, like,

had you guys, you know, done anything.

They didn't mention the alternator, like I said, um, but they did say

when the car had originally come in, what they ended up finding was

a broken camshaft.

Now again, this is a 1.5 liter and we have seen this many times where

the camshaft for the intake would break on the end.

Um, and so you would actually get a rotating camshaft enough to

where the engine runs.

Maybe you lose one cylinder.

Maybe you don't, depending on where the camshaft breaks, but it's

not moving the part of the camshaft that, uh, has the camshaft

sensor on it.

So you get a camshaft sensor code.

If you put a boroscope down in there, you can see that the, the

camshaft's broken and this is what they ended up finding on this one.

Five does happen on these.

They replaced the camshaft.

Um, but I have a feeling along the way they replaced another

component that they didn't mention and I'll get to that.

Um, cause that was what fixed this one.

Um, but that was the history.

Now I asked them, I was like, did this thing run, you know,

properly before this happened and they weren't sure they assume that it was,

but the customer brought it into them in a non running state.

So they never saw it run beforehand.

So anyways, who did what, uh, hard to say, but it's on me to figure it out.

But luckily I have this in my memory and I do have some stuff recorded

in a podcast forum.

This was before I did my, uh, like vehicle database notes that I

do pretty religiously now, um, like this event this week went into

there with all the details so that if this ever pops up again, myself

and my whole team have access to, to the combination of symptoms and

we go right to it and okay, it's podcast episode two.

So you can find it that way.

So what I ended up finding on this one, and I'm going to give you

my thoughts on it and I'm going to give you a real practical way to

identify that this is the problem.

Like if you run into it.

Now you might be the one working on it and that makes it a little

easier because you know exactly what you did or didn't do, but maybe

you're doing mobile, maybe you're taking care of this for someone else.

Uh, you've stepped into the situation after repairs have been done

like myself and you need to get to the solution quickly.

I'll give you a very practical, realistic way to determine that

this is your issue very quickly with very little testing.

Um, but what the issue is the crankshaft sensor on these vehicles.

Now, um, these are both auto stop, start vehicles, right?

They have the ability to shut off at a stop.

Um, when you put your foot on the brake, you lift your foot off

the brake and then it should restart and then you can start driving.

Now in the, uh, instance of the cruise back in 2020, there was

an option for that one for to either have, uh, auto stop, start

or not in the same like vehicle platform.

It depends on the trim level and what it was ordered.

Uh, the RPO code is KL nine.

Uh, if you're looking those up, you can tell if it's equipped or not.

You can look at the dashboard too, um, because there'll be a section

of the tachometer that has, uh, auto stop at the bottom.

If it's not equipped with that, you won't see that on the dash,

but you can look for that KL nine, uh, RPO code as well.

In the case of this Malibu this week, it did not appear to be an option.

Um, now I could be wrong, but from what I found, uh, especially looking

up parts that the 17 Malibu came only all 17 Malibus with this one five

came with the auto stop, start.

So you didn't have an option to not have this.

And that's the KL nine RPO code too.

Um, which makes it just a little bit more confusing, but the

crankshaft sensor is different for the Chevy cruise, depending on

if you have auto stop starter or if you don't, there's two different part

numbers.

So you can look this up on a 17 cruise with one four again, Malibu only lists

one, but what happened in the Chevy cruise was the shop had just changed

out the motor and when they changed the motor, they left the crankshaft

sensor in the donor engine as it was delivered to them, right?

They get an engine.

It's got a crankshaft sensor bolted into the block.

They throw that into the car and just plug it in and they go.

And then they have this problem after they get everything back together.

And that's where I went through and I found out and then I asked them,

I'm like, did you change the crankshaft sensor?

They said, no, so I was like, well, let's put in the original one.

We did that.

All of the problems are gone.

Okay.

So fast forward to now.

I'm thinking the same thing that, oh, okay.

You know, maybe there's an option for, um, auto stop versus not.

Again, it turns out there isn't.

And I was considering the work that they told me they did there.

They said they did a camshaft, not anything with a crankshaft, but this

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I use my phone and I reach down the backside of the motor and right underneath

the starter, you can't see it from the top.

But again, I just use the four or the like self facing camera on my phone.

I stuck it down in there with a light and I could see the crankshaft sensor.

You can reach it and touch it.

If you just reach below the starter with your hand, but I could see with my

phone, I could see is a brand new crankshaft sensor that's bolted up into

that block, right?

And so this is a, you know, eight year old vehicle.

You can definitely tell if the sensor is brand new or if it's been in there

for a while, this one's brand new.

And so that immediately, once I connected all the dots of the

symptoms that were going on, um, I knew that, okay, this is, we're

dealing with the same thing here.

Now, again, I'm not sure where this particular crankshaft sensor came

from or why it was changed, but odds are it's wrong.

So I'll get to the practical way that you can prove this out.

Um, and maybe some other ways that you could go about looking at this

that I didn't spend the time doing, but let me explain what's happening here.

There is a difference between the crankshaft sensors and it's the

sensors only actually, I did some research on this.

The tone wheel that is sandwiched between the flex plate in the back

of the crank, it is not different, right?

If I go back to that Chevy cruise, the one for the part number for

the tone wheel is the same between the auto stop, start version and

the non auto stop, start version.

It is the sensor that is a different part.

And that's why back on that Chevy cruise, we were able to just pop

the original sensor back in and it worked.

We didn't have to change the tone ring.

Um, at the time, I didn't quite understand it, but looking

up the parts and repair link, they don't change anything about the

tone wheel.

Now it's just a metal wheel with a magnetic strip on the outside,

but it can be used for both versions.

Again, in that Chevy cruise, in this Malibu, again, they only

have one version of this tone wheel and they only have one version

of the crankshaft sensor that you're supposed to buy for this one.

Um, but there is something different about the output of the crankshaft

sensors, the non auto stop versus this auto stop start that outputs

somewhat of a different signal as the engine's rotating.

So as far as I can find, um, and I looked into this as much as I

could and GM doesn't give a whole lot of specifics, but the main

difference between these sensors is that the stop start version can

output not only the, you know, position and the speed of the

crankshaft, but the direction of the crankshaft.

And there's some sites that list, you know, some details about

these types of sensors.

It may not be the exact one used in this GM, but that they have,

um, a series of hall effect elements within the tip of the

sensor and that way it can tell the direction that the

crankshaft rotated, particularly in an auto stop start event.

Right.

Because the engine comes to a stop and maybe it rotates back just

a hair as it comes, you know, it's coming to a complete stop.

And the engine computer wants to know the exact position of that

engine so that when you release your brake pedal, it can get

that thing started as soon as possible.

It wants to make it, or the goal of the system is to be

as seamless as possible to the driver.

So a lot of people don't like it, obviously, but they

tried their best to make it seamless and in order to know the

exact position of the crankshaft sensor, it's going to need to

know if it rolled back just a hair as it's coming to a stop so

that it can get the injectors and the coils firing as soon as

possible, as opposed to a normal start right after the vehicle

has been completely shut off, you might get a revolution or

two out of that engine before it figures out, okay, here's

the missing notch and okay, now we can start firing coils

and injectors at this point.

So you get a not an extended crank, but you get a longer crank

after a full shutdown versus one of these auto stop starts,

right. And so the sensor is the key piece of that in these

GMs does not appear to be the tone wheel.

The magnetic pieces of this tone wheel seem to be the same.

And they do note that this is one of those tone wheels that

you can't get near other metallic surfaces.

That it could ruin the tone wheel kind of like the ones on the

Mopar 3.6 liter camshafts, same thing, you can't set those on

a metal bench or set them near each other, they'll screw up the

tone wheel. They put the warning there on the parts listing

in repair link from GM. So they've obviously had some issues

with it and they make note like, hey, be careful with this

thing, careful where you set it or what you set it up

against. So it's a magnetic strip on here, the sensors

registering. But again, it appears to be the same in both

versions. Again, with Malbu, I only have one option. But when the

wrong sensor was put into that cruise, it was enough to allow

the engine to start and run. So again, the spacing the tone

wheel is the same and the sensors out putting something

enough for the engine computer to say, okay, hey, here's

the position of the crank, I'm going to fire the injector, I'm

going to fire the coil and the engine runs on this Malbu, you

could sit there and let it run all day. Yeah, it has a surge,

but it wasn't running poorly beyond that it was running just

fine. But what I believe is happening here is there's

something about the output of the crankshaft sensor that is

different between the auto stop star version, and the version

of sensor that is installed in both cases here, that the engine

computer does not fully recognize it as a successful start,

even though it's running the engine. And that's the weird

part. It's part I can't exactly explain what's happening in

the software. But it's, it will continue to run the engine.

Again, you put it into gear, and it will stall at that

point on this Malbu. But if you just let it sit there in

park, it will continue to run it. But I don't think the

engine computer is sending out over the bus like a successful

start. And I looked for some data pins and I could not find

anything that indicated it one way or another. I went into the

power mode settings of the BCM. And it just reflected the

state of the ignition switch and what it wanted the vehicle to

be at. There wasn't any indication of a load shedding

that I could find in the electrical management. Now I

bet might be missing something. And I didn't waste too much

time here and I'll explain why. But there's got to be something

that is broadcast from the engine control module to the rest of

the modules, power steering and BCM definitely appear to be

two of the important ones that puts it in a state like if the

engine wasn't running, right? The electric power steering not

operational, the alternator not charging correctly, the rear

defrost in the heated seats. Now those should work if your

key is just on. But what about in, you know, like some sort of

cranking state or something like that is a very strange state

that the vehicle is in. And again, not sending any codes

either. So this must be some default method that it sends

out to the network for it to be in this state. And it's

just weird that it gets here. But it'll continue to allow

the engine to run. Anyways, very strange. I don't have all the

explanations for it. But I know this is how the symptoms present

themselves exactly. So here's what I did. Instead of scoping

the crank pattern, which might be interesting, I'm sure you're

going to see a difference there. Honestly, it's more that's

more of an interesting and not critical for me to understand

because there's an easier way to determine this. Data Pids,

maybe I could find something if I dug through it and looked at

it really closely. Again, not super important because there's

a more practical way to do this. Here's how you do this. If you

have these symptoms, right, I'm going to run through it again.

Start or dragging after you hit the start button and you've

got to press the button again to get it to stop. The power

steering is inoperative. The charging voltage is fixed at

12. Your rear defrost and your heated seats don't work and

your idle surges up and down. And it stalls when you put

it into gear. You have all of that. You have no codes in the

system. Here's what you do. Shut the vehicle off, reach down to

the crankshaft sensor and unplug it. Go back in, start the vehicle

up. It will give you an extended crank. It will start. It

will set a code for the crankshaft sensor, but it will run

off of the camshafts, which a lot of vehicles nowadays can

do. They can completely run without a crankshaft

signal. Now you'll get an extended crank. Maybe it won't

be running that great. Maybe you can't go drive it around, but

it'll start and it'll run off the camshafts. There's enough

position information off of modern camshaft tone wheels so

that the engine computer can figure out where the engine is

and run the engine. Now again, you'll have a code, but

here's the thing. Here's how this is getting you to the

answer that this is what you're dealing with. All of that

other stuff, all of those other symptoms are now gone.

Okay, you got a code for the crankshaft sensor, your

check engine lights on, but your power steering works. Your

charging system is operating correctly. You can use the heated

seats. You can use the rear defrost. You can put the car

into gear. The idle thing, I don't know, I guess they didn't

pay attention to whether we're surging or not. You don't

have a crank sensor, so it's not going to be perfect, but it

eliminates all of that other stuff that you were dealing

with. And why? Because you've taken the bad input away

from the ECM. Now you've removed the input completely. So

it's going to have to go into a different default state, but

there's a difference between no crankshaft signal at all and a

pattern that must confuse it enough to not exactly know what

state that it's in. But if you do that, and you get rid of all

those symptoms, you know, you have to go after that

crankshaft sensor 100%. I don't care if you can see that it

was changed or not. The next time I get this grouping of

symptoms on one of these GM cars, I'm just gonna unplug the

sensor. Does the rest of that go away? Okay, you guys need to

change the sensor. Or in this case, we yanked it out, we

looked at it. Now, I did talk to him. He's like, yeah, we

ordered that from, it was, I don't know, aftermarket or

Riley's AutoZone, something like that. He's like, they didn't

have an option for, you know, an auto stop start. I was

like, well, maybe ask around a couple other places. And

from my research after the fact, he's correct, they only

list one. But I told him, maybe get a GM sensor or, you

know, AC Delco or whoever makes the OE sensor for this, you

might want to go that way. And I think that's what they did. And

that resolved the problem. And in this case, I don't know, that

sensor that was in there, did they just give them the wrong

one? Is there variants in aftermarket parts? I know there

is, right? We deal with failed or inaccurate aftermarket

electrical components all the time. So whether it was wrong

or just bad or for something else, I have no idea. Doesn't

matter in this case, because again, that it exhibited the same

symptoms as that cruise from five years ago. So final point

on this, I mean, again, you get a real practical way to get to

the solution fast on one of these. And this is the type of

problem that can really throw somebody for a loop if you're

not aware of this, because it's a very strange situation. So

you've got that. But the other thing that I'm always

preaching about on this show, and I encourage everybody to do

because it's now easier than ever to do this is to document

this stuff for yourself, right? Now, could I have remembered

that? Hey, I had this really weird Chevy cruise and it was

this. Oh, let's look at the crank sensor. Sure. But like to

have all of the details down to the specific things like

an idle surge documented five years later for me to listen

to, that's huge. That is so incredibly powerful. So again,

like always, I encourage you to record stuff like this, things

that you learn along the day on the job, the details, the

little stuff like there should be 2.5 volts on this circuit,

not 4.2 in this situation, or, you know, a pulsing voltage

comes from this module on this circuit, and that's normal

in this case, right? That sort of stuff. And I have the

episodes on utilizing AI where you can just blab into it, you

get it to output a really nice formatted version of all the

details that you want, and then put it in your storage

location of choice, you know, a Google Drive, an external

hard drive, whatever you want, write it down in a notebook if

you want to, it's just the tools now to record capture

what you're doing. It's so easy to do. And I don't know

why you wouldn't be doing it. So this is just an example of

that where I had dealt with a problem before the experience is

obviously key to that you're out there doing your learning, but

then capturing that so that you can refer back to it later.

This made this diagnosis like a snap, like I moved through

this one very, very quickly. But this is the type of

diagnosis that you can charge really good money for,

because this shop, I don't know how much money they spent, you

know, trying to resolve this problem that I think they

actually built it in by replacing the sensor. I'm guessing

they probably did it. The tech was, he was a little bit

flustered when he when I showed him the sensor. I think

they may have done it when they were attempting to fix the

original camshaft sensor issue because a non moving camshaft

just on the end is kind of a weird problem. I'm guessing he

didn't say that straight out, but I wasn't going to press him. It

doesn't matter to me who replaced it. That's the fix. But again,

to have all that information on hand, and I blew right through

that one and made a decent amount of money off it too. So that's

all I got for today. I want to say thank you to everybody

for listening. With that all the way, let's get out there,

start fixing the world one car at a time.

Chevrolet Cruze

Chevrolet Malibu

About this episode

Original notes