My mother has a 95 Sidekick 4-door, 95,000 miles. Up until about 3 weeks ago it ran great. Then, the safety lock for the transmission stopped working so she couldn't get the car out of park. Her mechanic bypassed it so she didn't have to spend money on new parts.

Shortly after that, it started knocking and she started suffering power loss. Most likely coincidental, but, could it be connected? Then it became increasingly worse. When accelerating from a stop, top speed would be 2-3 mph for a while then slowly go up.

She took it back to the mechanic (he's worked on her car for years and is very trustworthy, I believe) and said the knock was coming from deep within her engine and it was probably time for her to start looking for a new car. He said it could last a day, or a year. Without getting into the engine, he wasn't sure what was wrong. Well, a new car is not much of a choice and the rest of the car is in great shape.

I was going to take it to my mechanic Monday, but today (Sunday) it won't even start. Any ideas?

It ran rough and the knock wasn't super loud, but it wasn't pinging like timing being off, as my first thought was timing belt slipped. Any other places to look?

Thanks,

Jeff

If you trust that mechanic, then he knows
there is a bad problem.

Point is there is either 95K miles or 195K
miles, one isn't enough to need a rebuild,
unless the engine has been neglected, and
run low on oil or not changed regularly.

I would pull the engine down and do a rebuild
before the whole thing is junk like Rhino's new
Vitara with a huge hole in it's block and a broken
bell housing