Stalling at idle, at wits end...

[TechKnow]

Well... At least it is an new adventure everyday on the freeway...

*sob*

 

[jremington59]

Are you 100 percent sure the idle air control valve has been changed? Can you take a pic of it?

 

[TechKnow]

Yes. It was a new one. We are going to swap it out under warranty now though. We both have come full circle. When he originally put it in the car ran great for a little while, then started stalling again...

I will keep you posted.

Thanks. This forum is awesome & you are all worth your weight in petrol (soon to be pricier than gold)...

 

[05explorer1974]

I would replace the Idle Air Control Valve and look at the Fuel pump also because Ford had a fews problems with those 2 things. Usually stalling it was 1 or both of those items.

 

[alohamonte]

I'm getting a similar situation. I am getting cold start stalls in drive (not reverse or park). I cleaned the IAC and MAF and it was fine for 2 weeks now stalls again. Keep in mind I'm in AZ and when I say cold starts, it's still 90 out.

My money is on MAF but question is how do I test? Want to make sure dont want to start replacing parts unless I need to.

 

[jremington59]

Are you showing a code for a bad MAF?

 

[tgeop]

I had a similar sounding issue with my 04.
Occasionally at times when i would come to a stop i would start to studder and come very close to stall. It would also have a weird acceleration it would sometimes just take off when i hit the gas and other times it would even react to hitting the gas. It ended up being that my throttle body was broken and needed to be replaced

 

[drdoom]

I have knocked the IAC hose tee loose before...took a while to find it, as it is concealed under the big plastic cover.

 

[alohamonte]

no CEL for me

last time i cleaned the maf and iac and the cold start issue subsided for about 2 weeks.

last night i cleaned just the maf. i'm leaving of working in about 20 mins. if it starts up fine, then i'll know it's the maf. if it still stumbles agan, i'll move on to the iac.

an imperfect test but should do the trick

 

[zukman]

Ok after reading through this entire thread, I see that you have not addressed the obvious. There is a major vacuum connection at the back of the intake, get vacuum line. The little below fitting there is notorious for cracking and causing vehicle to run rough, stall at idle etc. It will be your cheapest repair! Good luck.

 

[TechKnow]

I'm getting a similar situation. I am getting cold start stalls in drive (not reverse or park). I cleaned the IAC and MAF and it was fine for 2 weeks now stalls again. Keep in mind I'm in AZ and when I say cold starts, it's still 90 out.

My money is on MAF but question is how do I test? Want to make sure dont want to start replacing parts unless I need to.

98% of the research that I have done on this points to the IAC. That is why we are going to replace it with a new one.

With that said... Unfortunately, I have not idea one as to how to test it. BUT the MAF is easy to clean. It is located by the air filter on the conduit that runs from the air filter to the intake manifold. You will need a security torx bit to remove it... It is just held on by two screws and it comes right out. Just unplug the wiring harness and unscrew... You don't even have to get your hands dirty.

Here is a picture.

Mine was filthy. There are a few sets of wires that need to be sprayed with electronics cleaner. Everything I saw said DO NOT TOUCH THE WIRES WITH ANYTHING OR THEY WILL BREAK... Of course, I disregarded this and very, very, very GENTLY cleaned them with a soft hobby paintbrush and got all the gunk off.

Mind you, I am still having the problem, so it didn't fix it. I am running out of bullets personally, but I wish you the best of luck.

Here is a picture of the wires you need to clean in the MAF:

PS. sorry about the ads on the pix, I just grabbed them off the web, hope I am not breaking any policies...

 

[TechKnow]

Ok after reading through this entire thread, I see that you have not addressed the obvious. There is a major vacuum connection at the back of the intake, get vacuum line. The little below fitting there is notorious for cracking and causing vehicle to run rough, stall at idle etc. It will be your cheapest repair! Good luck.

Yes, Captain Obvious has a hard time getting through to me sometimes.

I will look at this. I have been thinking it could be vacuum. My mechanic says if it is vacuum it would start right back up after it stalls (which is rarely the case here) so he is dismissive of the whole vacuum thing.

With that said, I think it is worthy of a look see. You don't happen to have a picture you would be kind enough to google up for me. Unfortunately, although I am motivated, I am still rather on the noobish side of things... Just ask my kids, they will confirm this... a lot.

 

[jremington59]

If the MAF isn't working within specs it should throw a code. Yes, it can improve things by cleaning it, but if it's bad it will throw a code.

Unplug your IAC and see if there's any difference in the way it idles. And there's no need to pay a mechanic to change it. You can do it yourself in less than 5 minutes.

I hate to be a cynic, lol, but I'm guessing he cleaned it and didn't install a new one. That's why I asked for a pic.

 

[Allen35540]

My 1995 Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer is experiencing a similar problem to this and I am at wit's end with it too! Here are the exact symptoms:

Starts perfectly and runs perfectly from cold Idle is normal. Engage air conditioning, idle does not change all seems normal.

Shutdown the vehicle to go in store. (Air temperature is above 75-degrees when the following happens), After attempting to restart with engine still warm, (hot soak), the vehicle starts up but has no idle floor! You have to keep your foot on the gas pedal to retain idle. Engine revs up but once it settles back with air conditioning now off, it goes to 0-RPM. You have to drive with two feet, one on gas pedal to retain idle and one on the brake to control the vehicle. After a period of time, the condition clears itself!

No Check Engine light comes on and when swept with a Snap On professional scanner, no codes are revealed. The Key on test indicates the MAF is in perfect running order TPS sweep test is okay. Is this similar to the problem you're having?

This acts like a major vacuum leak, yet my mechanic and I cannot find it. I suspected the EVAP system, but that checked out okay too! No leaks there! I noted that someone posted about the climate control system and a vacuum leak there. I hadn't examined that yet and will now do so. I will read everyone's post in this column to get some ideas!

 

[alohamonte]

So I cleaned the MAF again this morning, and it ran better (not perfect but it didnt stall).
So time to replace that thing, again. Replaced it about 40k miles ago which isnt that long figured it'd be a 100k part.

 

[TechKnow]

If the MAF isn't working within specs it should throw a code. Yes, it can improve things by cleaning it, but if it's bad it will throw a code.

Unplug your IAC and see if there's any difference in the way it idles. And there's no need to pay a mechanic to change it. You can do it yourself in less than 5 minutes.

I hate to be a cynic, lol, but I'm guessing he cleaned it and didn't install a new one. That's why I asked for a pic.

I suspect this is the case.

 

[alohamonte]

so i did a simple test and unplugged the IAC and MAF (seperate tests) and see if it idled/ran different. without the IAC plugged in it didnt want to start. and without the maf it was bucking and shifting like crazy. so, in my case, i believe those are working correctly. so maybe it's a fuel problem. i put a bottle of seafoam into the gas tank, maybe that will do something. who knows...

 

[TechKnow]

Just a quick update... Took it by my mechanics and sure enough the IAC was brand new. He swapped it out with a different one and it hasn't stalled yet, BUT the idle still feels funky and on the low/rough side.

I will keep you guys posted.

 

[TechKnow]

Well about two weeks after that last post, it stalled again.

Here's the deal, I have noticed that it stalls when I am low on gas. Once it gets to that point it will stall after I fill it up for awhile.

I have added SeaFoam to 1/2 gas tank, ran it to almost empty then filled up and added another can of SeaFoam.

I have not stalled in months and the idle has improved.

I am guessing I got a bad tank of gas (probably after the station got filled up from the truck, I believe that kicks up the sediment on the bottom of the tanks)

Anyway, the sediment (whatever) was getting picked up into the lines and causing the stalls.

I HAVE NOT BEEN HAVING ISSUES SINCE I HAVE USED THE SEAFOAM.

This would have been good information $2000 ago...