I heard from the service ms aged this aft and it is not a fuel pump failure.

He told me the CEL was signalling a "power" problem. Nothing specific... Just power.

They had it up on the lift to get ready to have a look an the tech noticed a wiring harness that fan near the tank seemed odd and upon closer inspection found that it had no less than five bare wires showing that were shorting out just enough to throw the fuel pump into a fit when the vibration of the engine went over 1250 rpms.

They dropped the tank and pulled the harness to remove the fouled wiring and repair and weatherproof the harness before putting it back together.

They then cleared the CEL and started and test drove with no issues! Woohoo!

Not a $1000 for a new fuel pump but only $309 that was mostly labour. I'll take it!

I asked if they'd seen it before and he said no but that he hasn't seen an HHR with 219,000 kms on it either. He is writing it up and sending to GM though.

Keep an eye out in the future for this issue. He wouldn't speculate on causes but said that it's probably a combo of poor placement of the harness, road debris lodged in the area, mileage and wire quality.

Just glad it wasn't the pump (knock on wood)