I have been hearing ocassional spark knock (pre-ignition) on my 165k mile SE. The check engine light came on briefly the other day and went back off at restart. Every few days the car will also lurch as if the transmission has disengaged while going down the highway at 50-60 mph. Any ideas. Otherwise the car performs fine.

On an unrelated matter the heat/ac blower sometimes refuses to run until you have driven 5-10 minutes. It then comes on and operates normally. I replaced the blower about a month ago due to similar problems. Now it'* happening again.

Weird problems to me - any ideas? Thanks in advance for your suggestions. I'm getting a little concerned about driving it without dealing with the engine problems. Normal daily driving is 70-75 miles of interstate with 5-10 miles of city driving.

Best thing to do as a starting point is to pull codes. That will tell you if there is a sensor issue that is going on, such as MAF, knock, O2 sensor, what cylinder bank the knock is occuring on, etc.

Advance, Autozone, or any other parts store should be able to scan it for you for nothing.

Autozone code reader says the crankshaft position sensor is the source of the problem - either the sensor is bad or the connections to it. They produced a diagram that showed it to be located on the left side of the block behind the crandkshaft pulley. The part is $34. Getting to it looks difficult - at least from the top. Any experience with replacing this would be appreciated.

Replacement isn't too difficult. You will have to remove the harmonic balancer though.

However, I would, before tearing into it, check the connections to it, the ground junction at the coil packs, and...take some brake cleaner and spray the sensor down. You may very well just have some gunk on the sensor that is causing some erroneous readings.

The crank sensor will possibly help the cause of the bump you feel while driving and possibly the timing/knock issue.

On the climate control. You have the electronic climate control right?

I'm really hoping that the brake cleaner will do the job. On the other matter I do not have the electronic climate controll. It'* manual all the way. Thanks for your interest and help.