Hello. I'm new to this site but I am pretty desperate for help. I bought a used 2011 HHR back in 2013 when it had 36,000. Fast forward 4 years, car paid off and I now have 99,000 miles with NO ISSUES in those 4 years. I LOVED my car!

Since Feb 2017 (same month it paid off!), I have had intermittent stalling when coming to a stop. Very intermittent at first, maybe one day a month for about 3 months. Car stops, jerks and shuts off. I am able to restart either in PARK or Neutral with no problem and continue on. Since October, it has been happening daily and the car throws NO ERROR CODES.

First stop was to Goodyear and they replaced all the spark plugs but it finally threw an ERROR CODE for Throttle body sensor. Ran fine for a few days and it happened again. This time took it to a Chevy dealer. They replaced the spark plugs, gave it a once over and sent me on my way. I told them what had happened at Goodyear but to no avail. When I drove off the parking lot, it stalled so I turned around and back it went to the dealer. They had it for 4 weeks trying to figure out what was happening. They replaced the fuel pump, throttle body, ECM, crank shaft sensor.

They have been pretty nice and only charged us for parts, no labor. Needless to say, we have put in about $1800 this year alone in parts.

Car drove fine for 2 weeks and now it is much worse. The car dies completely WHILE DRIVING short or long distances. It rides extremely rough. If you turn on the A/C or heat, that automatically kills the engine. When driving around town, if I come to a stop and immediately put the car in NEUTRAL, it will stay on about 95% of the time.

The car DID have value, but not anymore. I really wanted at least another 2-3 years from this car, but now, we are hoping our Chevy dealer will take it off our hands. I've seen online that we are not the only ones with this problem.

The car was towed this morning back to the same Chevy dealer after stalling while driving 50 on the interstate. Barely made it to an exit. Our dealer told us that for them trying to find out what is wrong is like throwing a dart at a dartboard if the car won't tell them any issue(s). They have hooked it up to a computer multiple times and are able to duplicate all of the problems we have but the car shows it has no issues on the computer.
Any other ideas of where they may look?

 

Welcome to the site, what was the error code, not their explanation of it the actual code!
There are many possibilities, dirty throttle body . Loose ground wires.
Loose fuse box halves. A 2011 could be the battery is starting to die.
A GM dealership may have an idea, however they move on and forget about the quirks our little trucklets act up over. As an example, check the ground clamp on the negative terminal on the battery, theses have been known to crack and not keep a tight electrical connection.
Loose connections in the weatherproof connections.
Many people don’t understand just how easy these HHR’s are to figure out, like you they get frustrated and that’s were we step in, many of us have had our rides for years.

 

Find a competent shop! Your Chevy dealer is throwing expensive parts at the problem with no basis in facts. The list of parts you gave would all have caused a CheckEngineLight. They are ripping you off.

Have the ignition switch recalls been done?

The symptoms you give lead me to looking for an electrical problem. Starting with a visual inspection of all of the ground wires under the hood, insuring all of the fuses and relays are seated. Inspecting the large red wire connection to the fuse box

Then checking the bottom connections to the fuse box. Checking the connectors to the ECM. And obviously the battery, they came from the factory with 6 year batteries.

Then respectfully asking the dealership to put your old parts back in and refunding your money. They should have, at least, offered to give you the old parts; it is the law in most states.

 

Is anything else going on? Lights going out or flickering? Power door locks cycling? Anything strange electrically?

 

It could be a problem in the computer itself which won't put up any error codes.

 

One of the unnecessary parts replaced was the ECM.

 

Sounds like the dealer wants you to get a new car too. Sounds like any extra electrical draw is killing the car, so you probably need a new battery, alternator, have a loose ground, or something simple to that effect like others have stated. I would also make a formal complaint against the dealer, as they are clearly incompetent in figuring out the issue.