Hi, First off I want to let you guys know I love this site and I hope that you can help me with this.

I have a 2005 Hyundai Sonata (manual transmission, I4 if i'm not mistaken, 172,000 miles) that I bought about 10 months ago. It's been driving fine, aside from an AC compressor going bad, up to about two weeks ago.

First after driving it for about two hours I shut off the car and not three minutes later tried to start it back up and it would just click. I ended up replacing the battery and the negative battery terminal which seemed to fix the issue.

However while driving on the freeway a couple days ago, the car started to buck a little while driving and then just shut down and the steering wheel locked up. It was like I had just taken out the key and turned it off. I would go to start it again and the engine would rev but then I lost all RPM's and it would just shut off again. I let it sit for about 15 minutes and was able to drive another 15 minutes and it shut off again. I double checked all the fluids and the coolant was very low, so I filled that up again and managed to make it to a wal-mart where I had to leave the car. It still died 3-4 times while trying to move it to some where safe.

I have not been able to get it to a shop to have the CEL tested.

My mechanic friend tells me that I should replace the entire cable as the original terminal was badly corroded when I replaced it and that might fix my problem. I'm hesitant to take it to a shop again because 1) I'm more broke than my car is 2) the only shop near here is the one that sold it to me and I'm starting to lose patience with them.

I've read in a few different posts that either the cam or crank shaft sensor could be behind my plight. If that ends up being my issue, is it something that I could replace myself? What else could be causing this issue?

I'm honestly thinking of just selling this car and my Ford Taurus and buying a truck. They don't seem to break down as often..

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
-Triston

 

Those would be my first guesses but I wouldn't replace them without testing them first. It could just be one of the 2 and then you would be wasting money replacing a part that isn't bad.

 

Hi, sorry it took so long for me to reply to this. I got my Hyundai fixed. Turns out the balancing belt broke and starting spinning, that broke both the cam and crank shaft position sensors which is what caused it to shut off. It's been running great ever since (I got it fixed in Feb). My idler pulley squeaks when it gets wet now though haha