Hi all, I have a 2000 mitsubishi gallant 4cyl automatic that has about 115,000 miles on it. I'm generally pretty good about getting scheduled maintenance. for the last few thousand miles I have had really sluggish acceleration from a dead stop. it feels super slow and almost stumbling. once I'm going everything is fine. I'm not mashing on the gas from a stop, but it almost feels like a car can if you floor it and flood a little too much gas in while trying to accelerate. if I'm going 30mph and want to accelerate on a highway onramp or something like that I don't notice any power loss. I thought it might be a bad tank of gas, but I've been through at least a dozen tanks and the behavior persists. I tried a bottle of fuel cleaner too and no luck. Does anyone have any idea what this might be caused by and what I should expect for the repair of your guess? I'm thinking perhaps fuel filter? Mark

I have a 1995 Dodge Caravan with a 3 Liter V6. I was driving home from a trip when it overheated. I pulled to the side of the road as I turned on the heat. No heat came out of the vents and the car immediately died as I slowed to a stop. I could see steam pouring out from under the hood. I noticed something spattered in the engine on my right, I assume it was coolant boiling over. The oil was fine and I looked at the reservoir on the left side of the engine and it was still filled with coolant. I was towed to a garage, but as they were pulling up to tow I realized that the coolant reservoir was empty. I checked under the car and saw no leak. The mechanic said the engine must have sucked all the coolant. He said the problem was probably the thermostat, so he changed it, a gasket and refilled the engine with coolant. He also said that my compressor was making a lot of noise, and that I should not run my AC until I could get it checked by a mechanic at home, because it might be adding stress and overheating the engine. I haven't used the AC since. I drove off and 6 miles later the car overheated. He came out, said there was probably an air pocket, he added more coolant and sent me on my way. I made it home without incident. The car now seems to shake a little bit, mostly when I'm slowing to a stop or idling. The heat has not really moved again, except for one minute while driving to my house, but it immediately went back down. My Brother-in-Law as well as another mechanic said perhaps the thermostat was not the right part or was installed incorrectly, so he replaced it. There is a whining sound coming from my engine as well as a ticking. As far as I can tell, they are both on my left side when facing the engine. The ticking increases in tempo as I accelerate. There is still no leak, so they don't think it is the waterpump. I can turn on the heater now and it does blow hot air. The compressor is definetely on its last legs, so I do plan to replace it (or the car, whatever the case may be). But any advice on the overheating, shaking, whining or ticking would be greatly appreciated. Also, on a side not, the plastic handle that releases the hood broke, so now we are using vice grips. :)