Has anyone else seen this message with the engine light? Last night when I was on my way home from Cedar Key my Princess PITA decided she wanted a ride home so the power suddenly went to about 5%. I had just enough power to drive about 5 mph. Thank goodness I was only about 11 miles from home and got a ride with the truck that was carrying my Sol. I have had prpblems with the engine light coming on since I got my car. Last Friday I had it to the dealer because the light was on again. They worked on it about two hours and said it was only going on 3 of the 4 cylinders. They had to call the main Pontiac service to try and fix it. I am sure this must have helped cause this. Hard to beleive this is happening in a car hardly a year old.

Hi,

I was searching "engine light" in this forum because of a similar thing. First of all, I'd recommend you try this search here because there are some relevant postings regarding this problem which is starting to show up in numbers on the '08s. What's frightening is, at least two people have had to have their Sols bought back by their dealerships or GM because they couldn't find the problem. Also, people have had Cat. converters changed, usually with temporary or zero success in resolving the problem. Some have had their ECM replaced, which seems to be the ticket -- but who knows yet. Still another was told it's a cam sensor.

Most of the problems seem to show up with no Engine light staying on.

I mention the 3 cylinders because my '08 Sol is in the shop as I type because it started to run rough on startups, intermittently. It would go away, but is getting more frequent. When it runs so rough, I'm sure it's only firing on 3 cylinders. Also, I'm lacking power while driving, even when the engine is seemingly behaving, which I believe is an intermittent misfire or lack of spark in one of my cylinders. I guess the Cat. converter might be leaning me out, pumping air into the system because it's detecting the unburned fuel from my dead cylinder. As I mentioned above, my Sol would show only an intermittent Engine light, until it started running rough just as I was entering the freeway on an uphill run. Now the Engine light is permanently on, but it's because I had to FORCE acceleration out of our Sol or we would have been rearended by a semi in just a second or two. Firing on 3 cylinders while merging in a 70 MPH zone while going uphill is virtual suicide!! Anyway, since I downshifted, feathered clutch and mashed the pedal through the floor, my Engine light finally came on and stayed on -- but I'm sure it's because the sensors got skewed because of the dead cylinder and the tons of fuel and air I had to stuff through the running engine. But mine didn't go into limp mode.

I hope you get yours figured out, and maybe you can send me a personal email when you find the problem! I'd like mine figured out, too!

Got mine back today. Said it was a stuck injector. Seems okay now.

With the LNF improper running of the engine will cause soot buildup on the injectors and spark plugs which can cause issues like this. In most cases it's starting the engine for a very brief period of time and shutting it off quickly. The system does not build up enough heat to burn the soot off and it starts to cake on.

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And the moral of the story is: Don't spare the whip! The horse likes to run...

Just as a followup, my Sol is running awesome now. I think the stuck injector was always causing problems from when I bought the car, even before it failed. The car always sounded unusually lean before, but now it's really throaty and the engine feels a lot looser and quicker to rev.

I'm totally stoked that my Sol is doing so well! I love it more than ever! And the repair was free, and only took a day.

Thanks, Texan Pontiac (Humble, TX)!