Official Engine Stalling Thread

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 22 Aug 2005, 14:57

I'd start here:

"5) IF STALLS WHILE DECELERATING, can almost gaurantee it's a dirty TB/ETM (or "bad" ETM, very expensive to replace so try removing and cleaning yourself or take it to dealer, say this defect is getting well known now and insist they clean it for you)."

And then go down the list on the previous page of this thread.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 22 Aug 2005, 16:15

Guess I should have gone back a page or so, huh? Thanks though. Yeah I'll have to take it in considering checking the oil/tire pressure is unfortunately the extent of my car skills. Hope it works considering it's getting VERY embarressing to stall at every red light. Like this morning for example, I must have hit about 7-8 lights before hitting the freeway........car died on 6 of 'em

bills '94 850 · Post by **bills '94 850** » 23 Aug 2005, 02:27

Howdy everyone. It was me who asked Matthew to sticky this post, and since then I've had the stalling problem fixed. (I signed in as a guest with a little short story a good while back, so I guess a few have missed it.)
My mechanic obtained an electrical map of the car and then wired up all of the relays in the car with a diode and little light (all of the lights were put back in the car so you could see them while driving) to find which electrical component was faulty. Evidently, the inside of the car was like a christmas tree! Anyway, the point of that excercise was to find which light went out when it stalled. No power in the circuit will cause the light to go out. From there, it was easily traced to the faulty component. He kept the car for a few weeks to monitor the results and finally hit pay dirt.
He was just as confused as I was in the beginning and instead of taking a guess at what was wrong, and replacing several parts, he persisted until he found the root of the problem. At the end of the day, all he charged me was $99.oo for the part, and nothing else. No labour, no funny business. Now that's a good mechanic. The problem was a fuel relay, but not the one which is visible near the radiator. I didn't know there were 3 of them, did you?
Hope that helps you all.
Bill

Other Guest · Post by **Other Guest** » 23 Aug 2005, 11:37

Anonymous wrote:Guess I should have gone back a page or so, huh? Thanks though. Yeah I'll have to take it in considering checking the oil/tire pressure is unfortunately the extent of my car skills. Hope it works considering it's getting VERY embarressing to stall at every red light. Like this morning for example, I must have hit about 7-8 lights before hitting the freeway........car died on 6 of 'em

Well since misery loves company, I have to report on day 100 after the quickie ETM cleaning I've been reporting on every Friday for a while now, I saw the Christmas tree dashboard lights flicker briefly once on my way into work today, but that's all. I'll see how it goes on the way home tonight. If 100 days between cleanings works for me I'll just keep doing that as I can put that time and effort into it.

bills'94850 electrical troubleshooting to solve his problem is interesting. I wonder if anyone has compiled stats on how much of each cause of stalling it's been (elec. fault, fuel pump relay, fuel pump, ETM, CPS, etc.)?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 26 Aug 2005, 13:46

Day 103 here after 2nd quickie cleaning (w/o removing TB from engine). Still OK except for one dashboard light flicker that didn't require a restart on Wed.

UT · Post by UT » 29 Aug 2005, 19:59

I just wanted to add my 1993 850 GLT to the list. Thanks for all the advice and cures. I am going to take it back to my mechanic and see if the information I collected will help him solve the problem. It is good to see I am not alone with this problem, and my mechanic is not alone not knowing what to do.
thanks - UT

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 06 Sep 2005, 07:21

Day 113 and I went ahead and did another TB quickie cleaning, that is, without removing it from the engine. Once every 3 months is not too bad for about an hours work, I guess. That's many cleanings before I reach $1,000 but let's see, next cleaning will be, Ah!, December/Jan., brrrr, cold out there!

carosser · Post by **carosser** » 11 Sep 2005, 04:42

After reading all of the posts and trying the suggestions, I have the problem licked. I bought the car a week ago and it had a new fuel filter in the trunk(guess that was a sign). I replaced that after the car started stalling the next day. I then cleaned the TB but still the same reult, stalling. Finally the fuel pump relay I ordered came and after replacing that I had the car in a parade for an hour and a half where the surface temp got up to 100 with no stalling, period. Thanks for all of the tips everyone.

Carl

sibir · Post by **sibir** » 13 Sep 2005, 14:49

So I spent 3 hours reading all the posts on stalling (which my 94 850 has done a couple of times recently) and am surprised that moisture was never an issue, except in one post in connection with the fuel pump contacts. But maybe my thinking was wrong. Remembering all the dash lights briefly (few seconds) lighting up after driving through a deep puddle and doing the same when stalling I thought there was a common cause. Maybe not. Does anybody know what makes the dash lights come on all together, just like when turning on the ignition? Does it mean anything?
Clearly there have been different failure modes discussed here. Can the dash lights serve to eliminate some issues?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » 14 Sep 2005, 09:54

The dashboard lights coming on aren't a cause of the stalling but rather a signal to indicate that the engine has shut off. The moisture question is interesting though but most people stalling aren't necessarily doing so on wet or rainy days or just after crashing through a deep puddle.