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Afternoon ladies and gents. I have a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan that I am needing some help with. It’s an AWD with the 3.8L engine in it.
It is randomly stalling on me and I have no idea why. Most of the time the stalling happens at a stop light or stop sign. I would just throw it into neutral, click the starter and it would start it right back up. Sometimes however, it will take 5 or more seconds of cranking to start back up. Usually I can feel the RPMs dropping to a stall and I would just gas it to 1.5k rpms with my foot firmly on the brakes to keep her alive until the green light.
Rarely it will stall out while rolling down the road and it will start itself back up due to engine momentum. Sometime it won’t restart itself and again I will throw it into neutral and crank for 5 or more seconds rolling down the freeway to start it up. It’s a dangerous habit which I’m beginning to master.
Occasionally after a stall the engine will throw a P0106 code for the MAP sensor which will disappear after a while. This stalling happens randomly. Doesn’t matter if engine is hot or cold, morning or night, snow or shine. Sometimes it will be days before it stalls. Sometime it stalls stop light after stop light. Good thing is it hasn’t failed to start back up and left me stranded yet.
Things I’ve done so far:
Check for vacuum leaks
Clean the throttle body
Replace MAP sensor
Replace crank and cam sensors
Replace idle are control valveI’m sick of throwing parts at it and I’m out of ideas. Any suggestions?
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Replies
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fuel pressure ? or fuel pressure regulator. when the engine idles its not getting enough fuel pressure to the injectors ? look for that
[quote=”jjohnson1″ post=182069]Do you have ability to check fuel trims.[/quote]
Yes I’m able to do so. Though I’m not sure what to look for or how to interpret it. I’ve recorded a short video of the fuel trims at idle, to 2.5k rpms, then back down to idle if you can spot anything wrong with it. Pardon the cheap scanner.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzQXsMLQ234[/video]
[quote=”Jimmy2142″ post=182074]fuel pressure ? or fuel pressure regulator. when the engine idles its not getting enough fuel pressure to the injectors ? look for that[/quote]
How do I check fuel pressure if it’s an intermittent problem? I’m not really suspecting the fuel pump or fuel regulator because when it wants to run fine then it will run fine. When it’s not throwing a tantrum I do not feel any power lose or lag. It will it just die without any warning. The kicker is that it can immediately be restarted every time which means the fuel pump and regulator are performing as they should upon restart.
Am I just being naive and should be suspecting those things? If so, how do I test them when sometimes it can be days before the car acts up again.
Sorry I completely missed the video play button. Fuel trims seem within normal spec. Your MAP sensor seems low to me at Idle and does not seem to change much. What do your O2 sensors look like. If you run at Idle and go out and move sensor wires, does it kill over.
One weird thing I’ve noticed is whenever the car decides to stall out that it completely resets the emission monitors. One minute I’ll have two unset monitors, the car stalls, then I’ll have five unset monitors. It’s not throwing any check engine lights, but I’ve been having trouble trying to smog it because I cannot get all the monitors to set.
The smog guy told me it could either be a bad battery/ charging system or it could be a stuck thermostat. I had the local auto parts store check the battery and they said it was completely fine. Battery is only 1 year old with clean posts and new terminals. My voltage meter I’ve installed inside the car shows the batter voltage at around 14v when the car is running.
The car can reach proper operating temps according to the temperature gauge on the dash so that rules out the stuck thermostat.
The van decided to act up today and would not stay idling unless given gas. I managed to get some live data when it was acting up.
First video shows the fuel trims and map sensor data when I’m trying to get it to start. You’ll notice it will not stay running unless I bring it up to 2k rpms. The second video shows my complete set of live data including o2 sensor readings while the car was still acting up and revving at 2k rpms. Literally 5 minutes after I shot the videos the car started up and ran fine again. I CANNOT replicate the stalling by moving around sensor wires and banging on random shit. Although at this point I am almost tempted to just bang up the whole car with a sledge hammer.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBix_8HZV6M[/video]
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLvD5_xZmgI[/video]
Is it a automatic
I had a car that sometimes stalls when stopping
the reason of this was that the transmission was broke and when I stopt it couldn’t get is in neutral. It like you put you menual in 3 gear en you step on the brake. At one point the car will stall if you don’t use the clutchI hope you understand what I mean
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