Random Stalling
#1
09-27-2011, 12:23 PM
Random Stalling
Just wanted to put this up in case it helps anyone else.
I picked up fully loaded 98 just over a year ago, with about 210,000 km on it. It was owned by my great grandmother so I knew it was well taken care of. After a month, a coolant hose to the intake manifold cracked and leaked. That was a quick and easy one. A month later, the car starts stalling out at random.
There was very little pattern to the stalls. The only two consistencies were
1. The engine was warm, i.e. running at least 10 minutes or driven earlier in the day.
2. It only happened when driving more frequently, every day or two. If I drove it once a week it almost never stalled. Drive it every day, and after 2-3 days it would stall regularly.
Restarts after a stall were equally random. Sometimes it would start instantly. Other times you needed to wait an hour. The problem with this was by the time it got to the shop, it would restart and they were never able to get it to stall again.
It rarely threw codes either. I finally got it to throw one when it stalled while driving over a bridge. I said "f*** no," bumped it into neutral, it miraculously restarted right away while coasting, and finally spit out a code.
P0341, which my shop told me was one of three things.
- Crank Position Sensor
- Cam Position Sensor
- Ignition Module
I was perfectly willing to do any one of those but had no interest in potentially changing all three on a goose chase. After several months of trying to get this car to stall more consistently or break down completely, I finally stumbled across this, a systematic method for testing the CPS and the Ignition Module.
http://easyautodiagnostics.com/gm_ig...n_module_1.php
I picked up a multimeter and test LED as described in the article (although for this particular procedure you could do it with just the LED). I drove the car around for a week trying to get it to die and stay dead before it finally stranded me in a left turn lane.
Blocking traffic and all, I pulled out the multimeter and test light and much to my delight when I tested the CPS, both the 3X and 18X signal gave a solid light when they should have blinked. Everything else tested fine, and the car eventually restarted again letting me get home.
I considered replacing the sensor myself, but when the shop quoted a half-hour as the book rate I said more power to you. I've been driving it frequently for the past week and a half now, and not one stall since. If you are having trouble with random stalling and suspect it's somewhere in the ignition control system, give that method a shot it - if nothing else it will eliminate a few suspects.
I picked up fully loaded 98 just over a year ago, with about 210,000 km on it. It was owned by my great grandmother so I knew it was well taken care of. After a month, a coolant hose to the intake manifold cracked and leaked. That was a quick and easy one. A month later, the car starts stalling out at random.
There was very little pattern to the stalls. The only two consistencies were
1. The engine was warm, i.e. running at least 10 minutes or driven earlier in the day.
2. It only happened when driving more frequently, every day or two. If I drove it once a week it almost never stalled. Drive it every day, and after 2-3 days it would stall regularly.
Restarts after a stall were equally random. Sometimes it would start instantly. Other times you needed to wait an hour. The problem with this was by the time it got to the shop, it would restart and they were never able to get it to stall again.
It rarely threw codes either. I finally got it to throw one when it stalled while driving over a bridge. I said "f*** no," bumped it into neutral, it miraculously restarted right away while coasting, and finally spit out a code.
P0341, which my shop told me was one of three things.
- Crank Position Sensor
- Cam Position Sensor
- Ignition Module
I was perfectly willing to do any one of those but had no interest in potentially changing all three on a goose chase. After several months of trying to get this car to stall more consistently or break down completely, I finally stumbled across this, a systematic method for testing the CPS and the Ignition Module.
http://easyautodiagnostics.com/gm_ig...n_module_1.php
I picked up a multimeter and test LED as described in the article (although for this particular procedure you could do it with just the LED). I drove the car around for a week trying to get it to die and stay dead before it finally stranded me in a left turn lane.
Blocking traffic and all, I pulled out the multimeter and test light and much to my delight when I tested the CPS, both the 3X and 18X signal gave a solid light when they should have blinked. Everything else tested fine, and the car eventually restarted again letting me get home.
I considered replacing the sensor myself, but when the shop quoted a half-hour as the book rate I said more power to you. I've been driving it frequently for the past week and a half now, and not one stall since. If you are having trouble with random stalling and suspect it's somewhere in the ignition control system, give that method a shot it - if nothing else it will eliminate a few suspects.
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