'06 2.7 V6 Stratus Violent Bucking

My '06 Stratus, with 192,000 miles, was running fine until yesterday's ride home. As I passed someone on the highway, it started violently bucking to the point of me doing 15MPH on the road shoulder to get home. If I eased-off on the gas or shifted to neutral and revved the engine it cleared-up for a bit then came right back. I've been a car person all my life and never experienced anything like this.

I scanned the code and got P0344 with the explanation of 'intermittent cam position signal'. The part is cheap but before I spring for it I want to confirm that a bad cam position sensor can cause the huge bucking I experienced. Maybe I'm over-thinking, but can timing chain stretch be a factor here?

I know the 2.7 engine has a lousy reputation but this one has been fine for all these miles and I'd really like to hold onto it for a while longer.

Thanks for any ideas.

Harold

That or your fuel pump is history?

FWIW, I had that exact same condition as you described in my girlfriends old '98 Infiniti. Turned out the Mass Air Flow sensor was dirty; blasted it with MAF sensor cleaner and it cleared right up.

That said, your car might not even have a MAF sensor. My '96 Dakota doesn't.

On a Stratus with a 2.4 litre. I had the cam sensors go bad. They bucked like crazy, and you could barely give it any gas. Less than a 1/4" . I did drive both of them home , about 10 miles. It just took awhile.

You might be better off buying a factory part. The parts store replacements aren't the best for quality control.

Cam sensor is a maybe, but doubt it

I would be taking a look at spark plug or coil

pull each coil and ck for a burn hole in the side of the rubber insulator

UPDATE: I bought a new cam sensor and cleared the codes (P0344 and a secondary code of P0304). I then wanted to move it to the shade to swap it out(it's about 100 degrees here now). Even though the car idled fine after the hellish ride home a few days ago, now it won't start. Does the computer need to see a signal from the cam sensor for the engine to run? I also notice that the engine had a little 'cough' while cranking, that I'm thinking is caused by the bad cam sensor. My big concern is that it somehow jumped timing due to all the bucking it went through. Any ideas appreciated. Thanks for your help.

Harold

Put the old sensor back in and see what happens. That is the reason I use factory replacement sensors. I went through the parts store garbage and ended up just where you are now.

I didn't replace the sensor yet; it's nearly 100 degrees here and the car has been baking in the sun. The car wouldn't start when I went to move it to the shade.

05 neon I had had similar symptoms & it was a bad cam sensor

It got a little cooler towards dark so I swapped-out the cam sensor (a long offset 13mm combination wrench would have made things easier) and the Stratus started right up and ran well. I ran a quick local errand with it and all seems good.

Thanks for all the help!

Harold

I was on the edge of my seat - I WAS!!!

Glad it worked out - I hate late model stuff like this that I can't even work on. Give me a distributor, coil, & carb car ANY DAY!

I have replaced 3 of them on my '05. The Borg Warner and Autozone brand last about 15k miles each.