I need help from you 3rd Gen guys. My daughter has a 92 SE, 5 spd. with the VE engine, of course. She has 143K on her. She is experiencing stalling. Mostly while driving in the lower gears. Only once while driving on freeway. The car will loose power and then die. It almost always restarts easily and runs with out missing, but did need to be towed once when it would not restart. It seems unrelated to cold or warm conditions. The guys who "fixed" it (shop recommended by Kati's mother) fixed the leaking y-pipe flex section and told her that was it. Well of course it continues to stall.
Another ? related symptom, when she turns on heater she smells exhaust and gasoline. I think the cat has been replaced a while back.
Please let me know what you think. She is a college student and lives about 75 miles away. I appreciate you assistance.


Thanks,


Dan Truax

 

bad coil pack(s) are likely causing the stalling. Usually just one, but sometimes more than one. They are difficult to diagnose because often they will test OK, but fail under load. The front ones will have cracks on them, but the back will look fine.If you shop around (check prices at NAPA, PepBoys, etc) you will find them new for about $60 each. If you are on a budget, you can try to pick up used ones. I had just one bad on (in the back) and it caused mine to stall and conk out under heavy acceleration. They are very easy to replace, just takes a 10mm socket.

It is strange that it wouldn't start back up. There are some other possibilities, too, like the ignition module or the cam position sensor.

Do a search for "bucking" and/or "stalling" and there are a couple of threads regarding this problem with VEs.

As for the gas smell, look in the stickies.
(post #11 in the general maintenance sticky)

 

Cliff Clavin, I appreciate your assistance. I was wondering about fuel pump or filter? Do you think it sounds like it could be this?
Also wondering if when replacing the coils. Is the least expensive way to go, just pick up a few, look her over and try to figure out which ones are the bad ones and replace them?
Any other opinions?


Dan

 

Also check the MAF sensor

 

If you can get the stalling to repeat itself, that's what I did.

I picked up a couple of good coil packs (one front, one rear) and started hitting the freeway (hard acceleration) and it would stall. Mine would stall and then I could start it up again. MrGone was with me, too. We also tried swapping in a different ECU, cam position sensor and ignition module.

I kept swapping them in until it stopped. It turned out to be the coil pack on my passenger side rear. A little later, I picked up a set of all six from someone that wrecked his car.

Usually when a fuel pump goes, it goes.

Fuel filter is possible, but I figured that would be one of the first things replaced -- sort of normal maintenance.

Like I said, though, pretty much everyone on this board that has seen stalling problems with a VE had a bad coil pack(s) causing the problem. I mean dozens of people. That's not to say for sure it's your problem, but it's the most likely problem.

I forgot to mention that you can check for codes (also in the stickies). These cars don't throw them that often and they will have codes stored that don't set off a CEL, either.

One crappy thing about these cars is they have a lot of sensors and stuff and you don't really know what's wrong because they go old and don't work right, but the car's computer won't tell you what's wrong. It's kind of a trial and error, which gets expensive.

 

And Also Check the fuel pump relay by the trunk latch. I had stalling/hesitation and this proved to be the problem (even thought it checked out fine by the FSM). I just replaced it and the problem disappeared totally.

 

i have the same problem, it would stall randomly (regardless of weather, etc). It got to the point where it was completely undriveable as it stalled about every few minutes. I swapped the MAF and the stalling became considerably less, but yet it still stalls

 

Thank you. I was going the fuel system route on 94 SE and nothing was stopping this issue. For us it was never under load, always when going slow or slowing down. Also the engine was not running rough. This coil pack will give me a new direction to look, thanks.