Don Wood

Driving into town Friday night I stopped at Dairy Queen to grab a chocolate shake. As I got back into the Sol I pulled into a nearby parking lot and put in my ear buds. As I was getting ready to leave, the car started to have a shake or rumble to it. Not the smooth engine idle I am used to. I looked at the display to notice the engine light was on and the anti-skid light was on.

Well, I was about fifteen miles from home and no one to help at the time so I decided to try to get the Sol home. A few times it felt like it wanted to die at a stop light but I was able to keep it running and I did make it home.

It was late and I decided to wait until the following day to do some troubleshooting on it. I did go into the house and researched what the lights meant and what to do. Nothing looked good or easy to fix.

So the next day I started by taking the wheels off and inspect the sensors for the ESC and traction. Both popped up on the display as SERVICE. I disconnected them and made sure to plug them back in. None looked broken or damaged in any way.

The rough idle seemed like it may have been a defective VVT solenoid. So I placed an order for that and also the exhaust solenoid. They were under thirty dollars for both so here they come. Should be here tomorrow thank you Amazon.

Sunday morning, I decided to go out and see how hard they would be to remove. Nothing seemed to bad so I decided to pulled the ignitors for the spark plugs and check the plugs. As I had a new set I thought what the heck I’ll go ahead and change them also. That done I went to see if it made any difference. Starting it up I noticed a very smooth and purring engine. The ACS and TRACTION lights warnings were gone and the only thing still lite was the check engine light. So I disconnected the battery and waited for a few minutes while cleaning up the tools I had used. Reconnected the battery and started up the Sol.

All lights cleared and running like it should. Next, a little cruise around town to see if anything comes back on.

If anyone has heard of a fouled plug causing the ACS AND THE TRACTION lights to come on then the DIC to inform to service them. Please let me know because I can’t make that connection.

I will go ahead and swap out the VVT and the Exhaust solenoids when they come in. I have around thirty eight thousand on the Sol. Well, that’s my story for this weekend and what I did with the Solstice.