Hi, this is my first post.
I have a 99 Countour SE with 87k on it. I am having classic fuel pump related issues.
At first it was bad performance at < 1/4 tank. Got stranded a couple of times, added 1 gallon and it was fine. Symptom is pushing gas gives no performance and almost stalls the engine. Car won't start when tank low.
It happened once at 1/2 tank. Added 1 gallon and it worked. After this I replaced the fuel pump. I put in whatever AAP gave me, it fit in the housing fine, but the electrical connector did not match. I made my own connector and it worked fine.
So, I tested it down to 1/2 tank, seemed OK. When I got to 1/4 tank, I got the same problem. Press gas and RPM go way down, car doesn't go, starts to stall, sometimes does stall. I pulled over and it started up. I was able to make it to a gas station and filled up. The car works fine now with a full tank.
So I don't think it's the fuel pump, since I replaced it and the car works the same. Is there some other component that behaves differently when the tank is low? I put a bottle of injector cleaner in the tank, this didn't help. Is there something that regulates fuel pressure that could be bad on a low tank?
Quick recap. When the tank is full everything is good. When low, I get very bad performance with the car unable to accelerate, almost stalling, then stalling sometimes.
Fuel pump has been replaced 1 week ago.
Fuel filter 3 months ago. - do I need to do the filter again?
Plugs wires 3 months ago.
PCV valve 3 months ago.
Tried fuel injector cleaner.
Tried dry gas.
I looked in the bottom of the tank when I did the replacement, and everything looked pretty clean.
Does anyone have an idea of what is wrong here? I'm very frustrated. Thanks in advance!
PS. Also, I have a CEL, but I had the code read a while ago and it reads P1744 - a transmission code. I think this is unrelated. If anyone has an easy fix for this one let me know though! I should probably pull the codes again anyways to see if there is something new.
