Questions and Answers

Stalling LeBaron Q. Vincent, Help! This may be a tough one for you. I know nothing about autos. I am the type of person that steps on the gas peddle and if the car goes it's okay. If not, it's broken.

I have a Chrysler LeBaron 1988 4 cylinder not turbo. It has P/S, P/B, Auto A/C and automatic transmission. It even has fuel injection. Nice car and I like it. I brought it new in 1988 and it has 124,000 miles on it. I'm still driving it today.

THE PROBLEM: When I get in the car cold engine, it starts fine. It drives great. Then in about 20 minutes of driving it stalls, this usually happens in warm weather above 58 degrees. It may stall at every light. It may stall at every turn unless I give it gas. It may go away for a few minutes and then the same thing happens. Until, thank God I made it home. It starts up right away after it stalls, and it works fine for a few minutes after that. I can tell that it's going to stall because it shakes a little before.

RELATED PROBLEM? After driving for 20 minutes to 38 minutes I let the car sit turned off. I leave auto. If I return after 20 minutes or so the car will not turn over the first time. I have to restart again. This doesn't bother me because of the other problem is worst. But I was wondering if this is somehow related to the above problem? If I get into the car in less then 20 minutes it starts up fine. Strange that everything is 20 minutes.

I'VE TRIED: I've brought my car into my auto repair guys that I've known for 20 years and they cannot find the problem. Whenever they got the car it seems fine. Just my luck!

I'M DESPERATE: So I took it to WESTEND GARAGE, a Chrysler dealership, I figured if anyone knows about Chrysler LeBarons stalling they would. I told them after driving the auto for 20 minutes or so in warm weather the car would start to shake and stall. What did they do? The man told me they let it idle for 1 hour and it seems to be working fine and they found nothing wrong with it. The car stalled about 8 to 10 times the week before I brought the car in there.

They told me there were no error codes. Except they charged me $80.00 to tell me that. I really don't understand mechanics. They don't have to find the problem. I'M TELLING THEM THE PROBLEM!!! The problem is the car stalls in warm weather after 20 minutes of driving. Do they think I make things up?!!! I'll never understand why they need to see the condition. If I went to a doctor with a heart condition would the doctor want to see me get a heart attack first?

I was wondering if you have any ideas that I could give to my mechanics to possible pin point this irritating problem.

I thank you so much for reading this. I hope I gave you enough information. And I'm sorry if I made this E-MAIL so long but I guess I had to blow off a little steam, I've had this problem since last summer and now it's back. Thanks again.

Sincerely,
Edward

A. Okay Ed, feel better now you blew off a little steam? Now sit back and relax and I'll try to explain this to you.

The first rule of automotive diagnosis is: "VERIFY THE COMPLAINT!!" You can't fix it if you don't know what's broke. There are a hundred reasons why your car stalls like it does. But until they can get it to stall, they have no idea where to start looking for a problem. It's not that they don't believe you. it's just they have to see the problem to fix it correctly.

Would you have them throw parts at your car until they find the one that fixes it? And who pays for the parts that were put in that didn't fix the stalling? It might be a bad fuel pump. It's about $350.00 to install a fuel pump. If that does't work, we could try a fuel pressure regulator for $150.00. That wasn't it, lets put in a new ignition module for $200.00. That wasn't it. Let's put in a $500.00 distributor and see if that does it.

See where I'm going with this? If you go to the Doctor with chest pains, does he go straight to open heart surgery or do a heart transplant? Of course not. In order to diagnose and correct a problem quickly and efficiently, I have to see the problem so I can understand what is going on.

One thing they can try that is a likely cause is to clean the Idle Air Control Valve (IACV) and throttle chamber. Many idle and stalling problems are caused by gum and varnish blocking air passages inside the intake manifold.

Another thing to do is to drive it around until it starts to stall. Then go to the dealer and take a technician for a ride, you drive, and show him exactly what it's doing.

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