Hello, I bought a 2004 Saturn ION 3 recently with only 67,000 mi. w/ a 5spd manual transmission. I drove it for around 2,500 mi. and has ran like a champ until a week and a half ago. It ran just perfect up through Monday night. I went to start my car the next morning and would not start. It just turned over and did not fire at all. I tried it four times with the same result.

Took the key out of the ignition, opened and closed the door, set and unset the alarm and tried to start it again. It started this time but barely. It would not hold idle, engine was very shaky and felt like it was only running on a cylinder or two. This problem happened over night and have tried to start it again a dozen times over the last week and a half with the same results. I can't drive my new to me car and makes me sick! The engine light is on. Got an on board diagnotic tool rented from Checker Auto tonight and it gave me code PO300 and says random misfire detected. Anybody have any ideas? I love the car and has ran awesome and handled very well till it just up and literally stopped running overnight

 

Todays fuel injected car is frankly quite complex when it come to trying to guess what might have quit working. An engine needs, fuel, air and electricity to create a spark.
Any one of those things could be a problem and causing your sudden problems.
If fuel, it would help to know what fuel pressure is, measured at the fuel rail. If air, a massive vacuum leak? Major hose to power brakes? Broken or cracked, a failure of a spark pack to the spark plug or plugs although the last should leave an error trail of some kind.
Dunno, suggest renting a fuel pressure gauge, or buy one if you are handy. I finally bought one as a diagnostic tool to answer problems of this nature.

 

John's right .......... could be many thing things, it's tough for anyone to guess whats wrong. First you need to know if your getting fuel and spark.

 

Yeah I figured that. Was hoping it was a common Saturn problem but not the case obviously. When it did not even fire the first few times assumed it was the cold start thing I'd been hearing or the Passlock problem. It just amazes me that the car took a crap overnight (less than 10 hours later) with no signs of decreasing failure to that point. I guess I'll just have it towed in and take my chances with an honest mechanic.

 

If you want it fixed right ... find what GM dealer in your area hired a Saturn Tech and get the car to one of them. If you don't do that you'll have an "honest mechanic" changing parts untill he finds the right one.

 

Saturn of Tempe now Suzuki of Tempe has it's Saturn Techs working.

 

If you are on the north west side of the Valley of the Sun the Saturn dealer there on Bell is now a Volkswagon dealer and just west of them is a Chevy dealer that is advertising Saturn Service. I know I can buy parts from them through the parts department.
To be honest though, a dealer has become pretty much of a gamble no matter what. I used to have a lot of respect for dealer service, it is a bit of a stretch these days to give much in the way of respect. But whadaUgonna do, there are competant mechanics, but they are also hard to find.
that is just west of where 101 crosses bell.
U say Arizona, where becomes another story.
I swear, the next couple of hundred I have I am going to buy a code reader. I have 3 cars I can use one on, and it becoming advantagous to have one. Dunno what I am going to do if I get to old and hurt to much to work on these things.
My Saturn was purchased used in 1996 from Saturn of Tempe. That was when the Saturn dealer treated you like a long lost friend. Now it seems that you are lucky to be treated as an unwilling conquest and surly at best.

 

Saturn of Tempe now that it's Suzuki of Tempe is still better then any dealer I've delt with my entire life.

 

It could be the anti-theft alarm disableing it from starting?
or you got no fuel going to engine if you have some starting fluid
or throttle body spray around have someone spray it in the air
filter housing while You crank it over if starts and runs on the spray
alone thats being sprayed in. then chances are you got a bad fuel pump
because your substituting fuel manually in the engine where a bad fuel
pump can"t do it the other possibility is electrical on your saturn i think
its a coil on wire am i right?

 

I don't believe either a bad/weak fuel pump or a single bad coil on wire would lead to a random misfire.....

I tend to think it is an ignition module but that's just a gut feeling -- I am not at all seasoned in Ion diags

take it to someone with saturn experience or you will get taken yourself