Hello fellow HHR owners, my HHR purchased new in 2008 and has given good service with minor bumps along the way but lately at about 150,000 and in use by another family member has all of a sudden decided to make up for all the years of faithful service.

Aside from the Low Power warning which was obvious as it did have low power all of a sudden, not only that loss of Power steering most noted but here are the Trouble codes I was able to pull out of it, some were already the same and repeated so I'll just give one example of each, U0073, P0122, PO222, PO700, P2544, U101, UO100, U0601.

Checked grounds, found the negative batter clamp loose and thought I had the problems solved but prior to that the Trouble Codes could not be erased so I could restart and see what hit first in an attempt to narrow down my collection and while I'm at it not even with a "Lobotomy" with both Positive and negative battery cables disconnected for about 14 hours, codes still saved after that..

Checked fuses, all good and the driver told me it ran fine for the past year [My son in Law] until this all of a sudden event 3 days ago.

I've thrown a part at it already that didn't work, Gas Pedal Assembly, read the threads about grounds too as well as followed links to other sites that were furnished by various members posting on the same topic.. Now I am at the point of total ignorance as to what to do next, to include someone in the HHR club who lives in the Houston area and knows who to fix this being paid to fix it...

My HHR SS 2010 is fine just like the 2008 used to be so with that said we are dealing with a 2008 Chevrolet HHR 2LT 2.4 Automatic Trans vehicle with a gang of problems all at once.

I see many of the same people still on this website and think that is a good thing and hope to hear from any of them as this is my Son In Law's transportation to and from work.

Regards.........

 

Are the codes current, pending or permanent/historic? Current meant the CEL would be on, pending is a warning, permanent just means it happened and the code is saved for information.
The engine should start without clearing codes. Yes, you wasted money on the pedal sensor.
It sure sounds like electrical or wiring. What is not being said about what happened just before this started? Did somebody do anything under the hood or near the battery? Any new installs?
Have you looked inside the under hood fuse box to be sure all of the fuses and relays are seated? Tighten the 4 bolts inside the box like King Kong would? Make sure the large red connrction on the fuse box is good.
Look for rodent damage or other wire chafing. What is the battery voltage?

 

Sorry you’re having problems, first off, tighten the 4 bolts in your under hood fuse box and the power cable 13mm nut under the red hood on the forward passenger side of the fuse box

Red hood. 4 bolts 7 mm tight , gorilla tight!

next up, how old is the battery? What static voltage do you have, should be more then 12.4 volts

 

Yes they are current Don, no problems on the way to work and barely made it home in the same day.. The part that gets me is the codes either reset with the ignition being turned on and the engine not running or they were never erased when I had the vehicle so that was why we disconnected the battery which should have erased all of it?

I knew I'd hear from you and Old Blue, just didn't know the order of things, for the record you were first and I thank you for your suggestions.

 

Battery is about 4 years old, a Duracell, I purchase 2 at the same time for each HHR, I'll go out and look though and check the red post, the 4 some have been checked and none were loose... Something I neglected to mention was when I attempt to clear codes it has some kind of Serial Connection problem and short of all that is shown on my scanner [Only] it mentions so many things wrong it is not possible they all went bad simultaneously, has to be a connection though as hinted so tomorrow is another day here in Texas, I'll get after it early before the weather gets too hot to tolerate....

 

Many codes all at once, especially U codes screams low voltage.

Sounds like you read those code before you discovered the loose terminal and tighten it. Is that the case?

Is the battery at 12.6V or better? If not you should charge it and confirm it is holding its charge.

I have no opinion additional opinions without more info. I might have more questions.

I suggest reviewing all comments and answering ALL questions, even any that might seem irrelevant. Some of the folks here actually know what they’re talking about and have enough knowledge and experience with these cars to be helpful with diagnosis. Very different from the scattershot and sometimes nonsensical suggestions (without nearly enough info to justify them) that you get on Farsebook and the like.

 

Thanks for the reply, I have to update everyone now, a used Transaxle was installed about 5 months ago so there had to be some things unplugged or maybe not plugged back in properly, I don't know if this will update everyone but here it is at least, I'll be under this thing tomorrow sniffing around..

I agree on the level of information here, I have read a lot of it even if it didn't apply to any problems I had but when I did one of them always came through and probably will this time too..

Regards,
Wheatgerm

 

They are all 1 cause; voltage.
The Uxxxx codes mean serial interruption. Probably because a module or more lost power.
Tight is not good enough for those bolts. KingKong tight means really tight past "afraid it will strip".
Battery age is not a measure of anything but the warranty., which probably ran out a year ago, not may 5 year batteries out there.
Most likely there is a loose or broken wire somewhere.

 

So did this start immediately after the tranny.

 

Just tighten the 4 bolts in the fuse box past the point of fearing stripping. If the transaxle was replaced the fuse box was pulled if the fuse box was pulled whoever put it back thought "tight" was good enough. There are 100 sockets and pins that need to go home "Feels tight" is far from "tight enough".