Hi all,

Just got an 08 SS recently with low mileage. Everything works well, seemingly, but the other night (rather cold... 25 degrees), I landed on a freeway that was stopped dead because of an accident. At that point, there was a subtle oscillation that made it seem like the car was struggling somewhat to stay on. Kind of like a revving sound oscillating about once per second. The PSI would move slightly from like -20 to -15 PSI. Turbo responds fine while driving though, and it seems to be just fine in slightly warmer weather. I was idling for about 15 minutes in the stopped traffic. Oil is changed regularly with full synthetic... just had it done actually. Ignorance is bliss, but is this normal?

 

Since it was cold out did you have your defroster on by any chance?

I’m not sure on an HHR but on the older machines I have owned with air-conditioning when you have the defroster on the air cycles on and off no matter how cold it is outside.

Wonder if that’s what you were experiencing.

 

I had the heat running for a while (not the defrost), but I eventually turned it off when I was stopped for a while. That didn't seem to fix the issue. I know what you mean about the defrost... I used to have a Jeep that would make that very noise for that very reason. This noise sounded more like an engine revving than the AC unit turning on and off.

 

to the forum mattg726!

A 'loping" idle makes me think you might have a fuel pressure issue, like the regulator is allowing the pressure in the fuel rails to fluctuate, or possibly you have a fuel pump starting to fail on you.

Hopefully one of our SS people will chime in here, I can't remember any posts about a loping idle affecting an SS, but I might be wrong.

 

Mine did some thing like that when starting, the dealer changed that blow off dealio, it had 30,000 then it's probably time for another one for me, they changed it and the pissssttt noise came back, has run good ever since. Don't know if you are having the same problem but I read here that they fail cause they have a little spring and a rubber diaphragm. Was thinking of getting the Forge one so I don't have to worry about it.