Hey Guys, I drove the Saturn today and about ten minutes after leaving the house, the SES light came on. When I got to my destination, I ran the codes and got a code 26. I called the local Advance Auto Parts and got some dumbass woman on the phone who said she didn't have a clue as to what it could be. I asked to talk to one of the guys I know that works there, but he's out sick. So I hung up the phone and came home. I think it's transmission related, but don't have a book on it so am just trying to recall from my rusty memory. Can any of you tell me what the 26 is and possibly what to start checking? I just got home, so the engine is hot and I'm going to let it sit the rest of the day and look at it tomorrow. I need this car to last until this summer if possible, but it's getting ready to turn 297,000 in the next 100. My son wants to use it to trade on a new car once he gets his settlement out of a lawsuit. I told him we'd be better off selling it, but I can't sell it if something is wrong with it that I can't fix.

 

code 26 is quad driver fault -- which never actually the quad driver in the PCM anyway.
Circuit monitors a bunch of stuff; if any of them misbehave it throws a 26

Search the forum for my posts with quad driver or code 26 as the keywords; I've covered it before. Gotta go make dinner anyway...

 

Man, that's a lot of possibilities to check out! I'm going to start with the coolant sensors. It's pretty coincidental that just a couple of weeks ago, my son told me the light for low coolant came on and I topped off the reservoir. It looks full, but that doesn't mean the sensor in the bottom of the tank isn't funky. After all, it's got almost 297,000 miles on it and I'm willing to bet it's the original. I'll pull that today and clean it up and see what happens. Thanks Derf, I appreciate it.

 

for the record, dinner was a simple marinated chicken over salad.
However I make a killer chicken marsala.....
And am expanding my horizons
Epicurious.com is a great site for recipes.

 

Okay, I pulled the overflow jug and cleaned it out as best I could with boiling water and CLR. I let it sit for ten minutes and shook the hell out of it a few times in between. I pulled the sensor wire and cleaned the connectors, but didn't see any way to actually remove the sensor from the overflow jug. I also cleaned the connector to the ETCS. Drove the car about three miles and the SES light came on again. I headed home and about two minutes later, the light went off. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this as we'll probably either sell it or trade it later this year. I think it's kind of odd that the SES came on and then went off a couple of minutes later. Maybe it was just because all of the electrical contact cleaner hadn't evaporated yet. I don't know.