Car QuestionFollow

I've been having crap luck with google, so I figured I'd turn to the OoT in hope to make firefix my car.

My car suddenly shuts off when idle. I can keep it going as long as I keep my foot on the accelerator, and it seems to be just fine, but the second I lift my foot off of the pedal, it dies. I'm thinking it's the timing belt, which means $$$.

As a temporary fix, I wanted to see if there was an easy way to simply adjust the idle speed on the sucker so it stops shutting off on me. The idle speed on the car was always a bit low anyway, so it should be too much of an issue to raise it a smudgen to keep my car going. Unless, of course, it's a ***** to adjust and I'm royally f'ed.

Car is a 1997 Chevy Monte Carlo.

HALP

Go to one of the major auto parts chains. Some of them offer a free read your codes. They can plug into your car's computer and read the codes and see what the computer thinks is bad. Their's a good chance its your O2 sensor. It helps run your idle. They run around 60 bucks but require a special tool to remove and replace.

Edited, May 26th 2011 3:25pm by Tailmon

It's not the timing belt.

Check your air filter. If it hasn't been changed in a while it might be clogged with crap which can choke your engine. A new air filter should run you $10 or so.

Adjusting the idle is easy as I understand it, but I don't know how to do it. For older cars, idle speed could be tweaked by tightening/loosening a certain cable. For modern cars I have no frigging clue. Unless the idle speed has drifted over time, changing it is only going to mask the underlying problem. Maybe something in the fuel injection system.

When's the last time you had a tuneup?

Like someone else mentioned, it's not your timing belt. If it were your car wouldn't even run. You're looking at anything from as simple as a vacuum leak, to as complicated as one of your sensors. Do you have a check engine light on at all?

Do you have to boost it to start it? Alternator.

Otherwise it's most likely one of the sensors on your fuel system. Idle sensor, O2 sensor are good culprits. You're starving the engine of fuel so something is telling your ECM that you either have more/less air or your RPM is higher/lower than it is. It's not timing, giving it gas wouldn't fix that.

Mine choked when idle but never fully stalled, and it turned out that an auxiliary fan had died. Replacing that fan not only fixed the choking problem, but also gave my AC a nice boost since that's the fan that cooled off the air compressor.

Your car is turning into Christine.

Better take it to Darnell's.

When my pimpin' 97' Grand Voyager started doing that to me we replaced the cam and crank sensor and everything seemed to work fine again. I don't really know what those do or what it means for you as I have absolutely no automotive experience or if it is even really relevant to your situation.

I'd bet money on the Mass Airflow sensor if it were me. Or if you are really unlucky, it could be something in the transmission.

This. You're not going to be able to adjust the idle without access to more advanced equipment than what would be needed to just tell you what's wrong with the car in the first place.

Take it to a shop. They'll plug into the OBD port and read whatever code your car is sending and that will tell them what's likely to be wrong. In most cases, a low/stalling idle is going to be a vacuum seal, sensor, or filter somewhere. Those are cheap. If you're unlucky, it could be some other component that's drawing too much energy from the engine (like the aux fan someone mentioned earlier) and causing a stall at idle. That can be anywhere from relatively cheap (like replacing a fan or a cable needing tightening), to expensive (transmission is bad, compression low, etc).

But all the speculation in the world wont replace 30 seconds hooked up to a diagnostic machine. If you don't trust mechanics, you could always order one of these. Yes. I saw an informercial on the damn thing a few days ago. Sue me! It'll be cheaper to just take it into a shop though.

Yeah, but you're a woman. Zing!

Love you Kastigir, but I am agreeing with Kao on this one. A friend had an expedition that did that, was her MAF sensor. When my TPS went out it caused the car to not shift properly. However, TPS is really cheap!