A friend of mine's daughter has a 2000 Pontiac Sunfire. She will be going down the road and when she lets off the gas to stop or make a turn the car will just die. She can restart it with out a problem, but it is becomeing a safety problem because she losses p/s and p/b when it does it. Also from time to time the ck engine light will come n for no reason. She has had it to several mechanics and they cant find any problems. Does anyone have any ideas or heard of this problem? Thanks,
Andy

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Live Life FULL Throttle!!

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Electrical problem? When she lets of the gas, one or more wires short out due to movement of the car. Is it intermittent, or does it do it all of the time. What codes is it showing?

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Randy Johnson
70 Chevelle
454
12.449@107.80
1.766 60 ft.
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some of the scan tools on the market will read real time data. If you can borrow one,
you could drive around and if the car acts up it will capture the fault. The cars computer will not always log the fault if it is intermittent. Or you could try shaking the wires to the sensors while its running and tapping GENTLY on things like the mass airflow sensor or map sensor ect to see if you can make it act up

Check all the vacuum connections. Had a similar problem in my ZX2 and it turned out to be a vacuum line was loose.

It is an intermittent problem but it happened to her 7 times yesterday. I didnt know there was a scan tool you could use while driving. She lives in the St Louis area and I will see if I can find someone to help her.

Sorry I forgot to say there is no codes showing when it does it.

Andy

It may be something as simple as the IAC, but some one should look at it that knows what they are looking at, the IAC controls the idle air and may by lazy or malfunctioning.

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Leo Paugh
Maryland Chevelle Club #017
A.C.E.S.#3731
progress has little to do with speed, but lots to do with direction.
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EGR Valve ??? I had a (shudder) 98 Merc Cougar that did the same thing. After $400 in repairs, it still did it. Worked fine at cruise speeds, but at low speeds would stall and run crappy. I finally talked to my Father-in-law, who is a mechanic, and he said it sounds like the EGR valve. Turns out, in my case, the EGR system was clogged up with carbon. Occaisionally, a gravel sized chunk would break free, and jam the valve wide open. All I had to do was remove the valve, and clear the carbon chunk out. Had to do it every couple of days .... was the first and last flippin F@%d product I have ever owned. Had a similar problem with our 88 Buick Park Avenue too (was also an EGR valve problem).

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-WAW-
1969 SteelBeastFromthePast
Ford Tough is an Oxymoron

This used to happen on my cutlass and it became more and more frequent, ended up being the fuel pump, and then one time after it stalled, it wouldn't start again and I had to get it towed. No check engine soon light though.




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Chris Dagenais
'71 Malibu with a home built 454! 12.7@107
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Another update, She said it runs rough just before it dies. Thanks for the replys so far.
Andy

I vote for Fuel Pump as well.


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69 Malibu 350 TBI EFI Supercase Muncie 4speed 12bolt 3.73's
Bench Blue w/black inter. 14.5@90mph
96 2 door Tahoe Z-71
87 Turbocharged 4WDRaider
"UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!" Beldar

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I say take it back to the dealer. If its a 2000 it's less than three years old, maybe over mileage but go back anyway. Be civil with them at first and see what happens.

My vote's on either the MAF sensor, or the TPS.

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1979 Chevy Malibu 2-Door with a lumpy Chevy 355. (Hot Rod)
1983 Chevy Malibu 4-Door with a 231 (3.8L) Buick V-6 with Edelbrock Goodies (Daily Driver)
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Aaron "The Hammer" Robertson.
Speed kills...drive a Ford and live FOREVER
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Time is never wasted, when you're wasted all the time.

Fuel pump is the most likely thing. They should take it to a Pontiac dealer, and let them diagnose it. If it does it pretty often, it should be easy to find. Hardly any independent shops have the technicial resources available that a GM dealer has. If the light is coming on, it's probably storing some info to help with diagnosis.

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ACES Member#603
Team Chevelle Gold Member #285
67 Malibu Convertible
67 El Camino
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Check the throttle body, make sure its on tight and that the gasket is ok.

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Justin Kramer
kman1@ptd.net
1968 Chevelle 300 Deluxe Sport Coupe 350ci (http://www.geocities.com/murderhorn666/paint.html)
Had a 1978 Malibu Classic 305ci (http://www.chevelles.com/showroom/mal6.jpg)
1987 Shelby-Z Daytona TurboII 5-spd (http://laijara.clanpages.com/shelby3.jpg)
1967 C/10 Stepside
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Mustang Performance; an oxymoron?

My neighbor recently had trouble with an older Cavalier stalling at stops. It was the convertor not unlocking (just like not pushing in the clutch on a manual trans car when stopping). It was a switch on the trans gone bad.

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von '69 300 Dlx SS TC #15 ACES #1575 HSCA #5
My '69 SS (http://mywebpage.netscape.com/jerryacheson/vons69.html)

to cure all of your j-body woes go to this site it is great for cavs and sunfires.
www.j-body.org (http://www.j-body.org)

If it is the t/c lockup solenoid, you could unplug it. that might help confirm it. I did that on a fiero that i had
until I got around to replacing it. It will work fine with it not locked up but just turn a few hundred more rpm. while cruising

I also have a sunfire that keeps stalling but mines only in warm weather above 50 degrees or so, but once i restart the car it runs like its brand new for 5 minutes or so before just dieing out again and running very rough, please email me at mikechoiselat@hotmail.com if anyone else is running into this problem please

Thank you
Mike

A cheap thing to do, which is also a part of maintainance, is to clean the throttle body. I use Amsoil Power Foam . Works great. There are many similar products that should work as well. Sounds like a classic case of dirty throttle body.

I also have a 2000 Pontiac Sunfire and it too has a stalling problem. My guess is it's the computer but I want to be sure before I spend 100's of dollars on it. The most frustrating part of this problem is that it is intermittent. There are no engine lights that appear when it happens. I took it to a couple of shops and they really can’t find what the problem is. I had the wires, plugs, and crank sensor replaced. I also had the coils checked and fuel injectors cleaned. I didn't get the fuel filter changed yet but I will soon although I don't think that this is the problem. I assume that the shops checked all the relevant areas of the engine to rule out vacuum leaks and such.

When the shop hooks it up to the computer, it doesn't show any errors or that anything is wrong. Just about every time I took it to the shop it ran perfectly. I think my car has a mind of its own. When driving the car, it might start up fine and run for a few minutes with no problems and then all of a sudden stall when I depress the clutch and let off on the gas. Needless to say, stop and go driving is very frustrating. I can tell when it is about to happen because as soon as I depress the clutch and let off the gas, the RPM’s drop immediately.

My fear is that if I take it to a dealer before getting a good idea of what the problem is they will rip me off and try to replace everything.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.