My '96 auto is stalling! I've done nothing new for 6months and now that it is getting colder in chicago this problem has gotten even worse. this happens when i just start the car if it has been sitting overnight or if it's only been sitting a few hours but the weather is exceptionaly cold. the car will jump to the regular ~1.2-1.4K rpm until it warms up. even if i let the engine idle until fully warm the car will still do this.

any time i come to a stop the car starts to choke/stall. it will drop to 400-500 rpm and start choking and if it's really cold it will stall altogether. two strange things: the car will be fine if i shift into neutral before coming to a stop. the other strange thing is that it will still do this even if i let the engine warm up for five or ten minutes. after driving a few blocks the car behaves completely normally in everyway.

this leads me to believe that it has to be something with the tranny. i've never been especially hard on the car and it only has 106k miles. about 10k ago i had a full transflush with amsoil fluid. oil is changed regularly with mobil1 and i only use premium. any ideas? i'll end up going to my mechanic either way but just wondering.

another thing (while i'm at it): my left front wheel has been intermitently making clunking sounds while driving. not while turning, but when going straight. the frequency of the sound is speed-dependant and for the past few days it has disappeared but something tells me it will come back to bite me in the ***. i don't think it's the CV, could it be the wheelbearings? what's the test for bad bearings? i know you just jack the car up and it's a quick check for play in something but i can't remember what it is exactly...

 

I doubt it's your tranny. Check the basic stuff first.

1) Check for stored error codes
2) Clean your TB
3) Check the resistance of the ECTS, make sure it's within specifications.

 

This happend to me at the early part of winter I would start it and put it in drive and it would stall, abuot 3 weeks later my tranny went....could be a early sign to tranny failure or maybe its something else just thought sounded like the same situation that happend to me....

 

Sounds like i have a prob like this somewhat. I let my car sit over night and i went to start it up and it started but then as the rpms go up it just drops and stalls out. If i give it gas it will catch and would be fine..

 

thanks njmaxseltd, someday i may even forgive you for hating sprints ...

the TB is perfectly clean, I clean it everytime i recharge my frankencar filter and i did this about two months ago.

no stored errors that i can see (after the manual blinky ecu test).

also, what is the ECTS? I would search, but this is on topic and i can't search anyway.

 

bumptybumpbump