My wife was driving our 02 Aurora. The car suddenly lurched and the rpm gauge pegged to 8k rpm. Its driving fine, correct engine noise, engine temperature is fine. Anyone have any idea what happened? Methinks the rpm sender unit failed, but why the lurch? Its a little freaky. Any ideas would help. Thanks.

the pcm bases your spark off the crank sensor and also the tach, if i had to guess it would be something like that. or loose battery cables or ground, those can do funky things too. does it still do it or was it just once then fine?

Thanks for the response, and now I have an update. Apparently it has stalled out twice now as she is driving it home. If she is having stall out, maybe the crank sensor. Im still concerned it lurched when that happened.

clean the battery terminals first, then drive it. if it stalls again try to see if the rpm gauge does something weird first

Battery looks good. Pulled a p0385. Seems like crank position sensor. A couple misfire codes. Thoughts?

If it'* the V-8 it has 2 crank sensors I would replace them both. GM had many problems with the north star crank sensors and updated the part many times.

its the "short"star and from what i understand its pretty much the same as the northstar, so i would agree

V6 yes. I plan to replace it tonight, then run the reset protocol. Its only one sensor on the short star as far as I can tell. Just above the starter. Thanks for the help. I had some misfires codes too, but I am guessing thats related.

the definitions i saw said sensor b and if there is a b there must be an a

Good point. I will keep looking. Thanks