Looking at purchasing a 98 neon. Owner drove it home one day shut it off and it hasn't started since. It cranks fine, has spark, timing belt still good. Sprayed fuel into the throttle body but it didn't even cough. No codes present, fuel system data says fuel system #1 open state, #2 N/A according to my scanner. It sounds like a timing issue to me but I'm pretty ignorant to neon issues. It's got 200,000kms on it. Timing belt was done at 120K. Engine has clean oil, clean coolant.

 

I've always been told about the 2 F's. Fire or fuel. Do you have spark on all 4 plugs? If so the next things I would check is fuel pump and injectors. My 2000 does not have a fuel filter by itself. It seems odd for the timing to change after shutting down the engine. Good luck

 

At first I was thinking fuel pump but it didn't even stumble when I sprayed gas into the throttle body. Not even a hiccup. My thinking on the timing belt is who knows how long it's been sitting and maybe the cam had no oil on it and it may have seized enough to have the belt skip a tooth or something. It's got spark on all four wires. I guess it could possibly be all four sparks plugs are shot. Kind of unlikely but not sure yet. Just don't wanna get too far into it and end up spending too much on it. Makes me wonder why it had no codes at all though. if the timing was off it'd trip a cam pos code you'd think.

 

The timing belt cover on my 2000 has a round plug on the top of the cam gear cover to look inside. If so you can check to see if the belt is broken. I can also turn the engine from the crank pulley bolt to see if the cam gear is moving and to check if the timing marks match up. I just did my timing belt, tensioner, and water pump last week by myself. It was a bear.