I have no idea what happened. I was going to the beach the day after Christmas. The road was sloping downhill if that affects anything. The beach was really crowded and I was just waiting in drive, not moving, angled down hill, for ten or fifteen minutes. All of a sudden, I felt the rpms drop a little bit, like the air conditioner had cycled on and the CEL came on. Nothing seemed wrong until I reached the bottom of the hill and turned around to go back up. The car had absolutely no power or torque whatsoever. I was able to barely climb the hill, literally had to FLOOR the accelerator just to move. It felt like the transmission was stuck in third gear or something. I put the car in park, and tried to give it some gas. If you floored it in park, it would take three or four seconds to climb to about 3500 rpms and it would bounce there like it had a rev limiter. I shut off the car and tried to start it again but it wouldnt start. It wouldnt really turn over. It would just catch immediately and die. We were at the beach, didnt really know what to do, so we just went for a walk with the dog, came back an hour or so later and the car started fine no problems, drove fine no problems. The next day, on my way to work in the morning, the CEL went off. I had a mechanic friend look at the car but its VERY difficult for me to trust a mechanic. He checked the codes, then cleared them and told me not to drive the car. He said the codes needed to be cleared out because the ECU in a car is just like a computer and they get viruses, too, and need to be cleaned out, so he said he cleaned my ECU of all the viruses by clearing it. He said its a faulty transmission sensor and a faulty engine sensor buried under the timing belt. I never had transmission problems. I just tried to explain that the car had no power or torque like it was stuck in third or fourth gear. I find it odd that he's diagnosing a transmission problem and I really find it odd that he cleared the codes because now I cant really get a second opinion. Does this sound like anything familiar to you guys?

 

Did he tell you the code numbers?

The crank or cam sensor will do that. You could check that the plugs are secure. If it happens again you may need a new sensor. The cam sensor does involve a considerable amount of labor to remove so it's not something to do on a vague su****ion.

There's really no such thing as an "ECU virus" since it has no data connection to the internet or otherwise to anything outside the car.

 

My 2001 has been doing the same thing. Changed the tech crank sensor and it does the same thing. No one can figure it out?