VX Stalls and Dies While Driving

[Clyde]

Has anyone else had their VX to stall and die while driving it? This morning when I arrived to work I pulled into the parking lot and was getting ready to park when I noticed it was hard to turn the steering wheel. I then looked down at the dash to see the indicator lights light up to tell me that the engine had died. I was still able to park the VX. After parking, I turned the ignition switch off and then tried to crank the engine over again to see what happened. The engine cranked right over and ran for a couple minutes before I shut it off. I even tapped the gas a couple times to make sure it wouldn't die out again, but this wasn't necessary. It ran with no problems.

I had driven my VX about an hour to work with no other problems. It is about 80 degrees out this morning and I have between three fourth and a half a tank of gas. Obviously after driving about an hour the engine is fully warmed up. Occasionally I notice a sputter while driving (after it is fully warm), like it is cutting out but it doesn't actually die like that. Also, my whole drive is highway and not stop and go traffic like city driving. And lastly I changed the oil around 1000 miles back (every 3000-4000 miles) and changed the oil and air filter (regular stock) about 10000 miles ago.

Has anyone ever had this to happen them and if so do you know what I can do to fix it? Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.

[autox-racer]

I had a problem with stalling at idle. It was intake gasket leaks. The gaskets become brittle and crack after about 50,000 miles and cause a big vacuum leak.

Does your stalling happen mostly at idle type rpm's?

[yal^]

how about cleaning your fuel injectors?
mine was "coughing" on a very hot days. I took it to the shop, and had them done some cleaning. That fixed it...

[webdog]

Change the fuel filter if not done recently. That just happened to my wifes VX.

[Clyde]

Well, on the way home this evening I had no problems whatsoever. It rained like you wouldn't believe here and I thought that if I was going to have any problems it would sure happen this evening with the kind of luck I have. I did speak with a mechanic with UAW today and he said I should also check the throttle body to see if it isn't clogged around the plate with carbon build up. He told me that he has seen cars die when stopping or slowing down like I was to park because of them not getting enough air into the engine due to this being gunked up. He also said I might look into the spark plugs to see if the gap has increased on any of them as well.

Another think I noticed when putting the VX in park when I arrived home was a weird "clunk" sound. Then when I shifted back and forth from drive and park it continued. Does anyone elses VX do this? Could that be the cause of problems somehow? It sounds like two separate problems to me, but with the way everything is tied into each other on vehicles today I'm not too sure.

I haven't looked into the intake gasket, but I will look into that. I will probably run some fuel injector cleaner through the injectors as well. That never hurts anything. I have changed the fuel filter not too long ago.

If anyone has any other ideas of what I might look into I would appreciate it. That way I can cover all the bases.

[BBVX]

We have the same problems you describe, the random stalling and the clunk. Our driveway is pretty steep so I never gave much thought to the clunk. It is much quieter when parking elsewhere, I always just thought is was the relieving of driveline stress. I don't think ours is repetitive like yours though, are you by chance parking on an incline??
Our VX has stalled on my wife 2 or 3 times in as many months, same thing. Running at temp, she comes to a stoplight and it stalls, but it will start right up and run fine. It seems very random, also on occasion at highway speeds it will give a little hiccup. I thought it was a tankful of bad gasoline.

Brian

[Clyde]

As far as the clunk when going into gear I guess I should have put more info in about it. The clunk I noticed was in my very level floored garage. It doesn't happen when I go slowly through the gears (like from drive to park and back again). But if I quickly shift into gear I will notice a clunk. It sounds almost like something is engaging a little slower than everything else. When shifting quickly between drive and park, I've noticed the engine idle change rapidly. At times it looks like the engine rpm will die out. This all happened after my drive home from work (about an hour drive).

As for the "hiccup" while going down the road I know that all too well. Mine does it about once a week. It happens especially when I'm being very accurate and keep it pegged right at 60 MPH. It just feels like it cuts out in a split second and then resumes without any problems like it was before the "hiccup". It's very strange. It's almost like pushing in the clutch in a manual vehicle and then dropping the clutch back out quickly.

As for my engine dying. It hasn't done that anymore and I hope it never does it again. I bought some really good fuel injector cleaner and that has seemed to make it run a little smoother. I also checked my throttle body and to my surprise it was very clean. I'm just now waiting to see if it does it again.

[valenki]

I have been having the same problem , also the RPMs jumped up and down sometimes. I took it to Phoenix auto repair which I highly reccomend, they told me that my jumping RPM and truck stalling problem is from a leaking intake manefold gasket. I was wondering if anyone had ever came across this issue and if that was the problem. Thanks

[Reg Hinnant]

One last item it could be is the fuel pump.
Mine would hiccup like Clide describes and it took a rep with his diag tool hooked with me driving to finally show them what was happening. Fuel pump fixed that.
The leaking intake gaskets were a very common problem.
Do the simple stuff first!
Good luck!

[BlackVX]

Mine was kicking during acceleration. After reading a post here with similar problem, I replaced the MAF sensor, removed the Injen air intake kit and put back the original factory air filter system. That did the trick.

Good luck,
Michael

[kelvin]

I didnt want to clog up the forum with a new post, but i have a similar problem that i'll piggyback onto this thread....

so, the short version is that my mechanic failed to fix an oil leak and after 4 attempts and lots of money i had my engine burn out from lack of oil. i fronted the $$ and had a used motor put in by a new mechanic. the good news is that i won the small claims case against the inept mechanic and got $6k to pay for the repairs. the bad news is that my new motor is having issues...

The new motor is doing a similar hicup as described in previous posts....kinda....

this will happen semi often durring normal driving (25% of the time or less) and all the time when the headlights are on (95%).

when i get up to speed my motor will cut out after and at 2500rpm. once the engine falls below 2500rpm the engine will kick back in, and back off again over 2500rpm. i have to maintain below 2500 rpm to keep the problem at bay. durring initial acceleration at lower speeds it seems to be less of an issue. when the headlights are off and it occurs, it seems to be a quicker hicup that cuts out and then back in, while at night is gives me a solid 2500rpm limit. My idle seems to bounce at idle on the rare occasion also.


I have allready had the idle control motor replaced and the problem persists.
other ideas include:
-fuel pump (doesnt seem too likely, but possible)
-an elecrtical problem like low amps (explains the headlight issue but it happens sometimes when they're off too.)
-a bad ground
-a vacume issue
-other

this is becoming a real hastle and i've never had a problem AT ALL with my vx untill now. any suggestions would help.

[etlsport]

the headlight thing is throwing me a little.. but i experienced a similar hiccup on the highway where i couldnt rev over about 2500 rpm, pulled over, started back up and the vx did ok after that.. when i got home i replaced the fuel filter and havent had any trouble since then... its a very quick and inexpensive thing to try, so id say its worth trying

[kelvin]

i'll deffinately try, but i dont have alot of hope for a quick fix like that. the issue is too specific. 2500rpm. no more, no less. a clogged filter would cause problems all over the spectrum, more at higher speeds. but i'll throw it on my shopping list for this weekend.

[kpaske]

Yeah, I get the occassional hiccup during normal driving and it will sometimes stall at low RPMs or idle. My fuel filter hasn't been changed in a while - I'll have to check my records to see if it's due again. I had the leaky intake manifold gasket, but I fixed that a few months ago. I'll have to go back and make sure it's still holding a nice seal. My spark plugs are new, and I run the occassional bottle of fuel injector cleaner through my tank for good measure. I've never had a "professional" injector cleaning, but I may do this some time in the near future.

Hey Reg, how difficult/expensive is it to replace the fuel pump? Is it located in the tank or outside? With 105k miles on mine I think this is a likely suspect.

[kelvin]

Maybe a hiccup in the rev limiter ?

yeah, i've also pondered that... perhaps the computer is shot....

there are so many possibilities, none sound perfect and most sound expensive....

ok, so i'll add that to the list of maybe's. any thing else?