Car dies randomly

[DominusEtDeusNatus]

I have no SES lights, no shaking, no noises, nothing unusuall. The car without any warnings would just die. It doesn't matter if it's been on for 5min or for 1 hour. Temperature nor speed doesn't matter. It dies at stop light, it dies at 80mph. No warnings, no shaking, no clues. Then it won't start up again if I try right away. It will try to start. But won't. I have to wait 1min and it starts. So in that 1min something magical happens. It dies every 10-15min now. It started off once every 30min-1hr. This just started today. I don't even know where to start looking for problems.

[need4speed]

Sounds like your fuel filter could be plugged up or fuel pump problems. If you haven't changed your fuel filter in a while, I would start there. My dad had a pickup that did the same thing so we stopped on the edge of the highway and I replaced the filter with a new one and it ran fine.

[DominusEtDeusNatus]

Not the fuel filter. Just died three times in 30 min. It shuttered a little as it died in my driveway.

This is what I got ruled out.

plugs/wires - if those were bad then the car would constantly shake and it wouldn't just fix itself.

alternator - even if that went out I'd still have my battery

battery - I have plenty of power even right after it dies

fuel filter - just changed

-------------------------------------------------
Possible suspects:
fuel pump - they usually just go out, it wouldn't just fix itself. This is a maybe. Anyone have any experience with dying fuel pumps?

coils - I do have those accell coils. They didn't give me any problems the first 3 months though. And they would have to go out all together anyway so this is most likely not it.

Any other ideas?

[ April 06, 2002: Message edited by: Dom ]</p>

[96 T-Top Bird]

I had a problem w/ my fuel pump.

But i DID get an SES light.

I was driving for a while, then car died, Check gauges light came on along w/ the SES light and everything just shut off, i had to cruze over to the side of the road with no powerstearing :mad:

Waited a minute and fired it back up..drove fine for about 15-20 mins or so and same thing happened. Car would keep cranking but would never turn over and fire.

Took me about 1 hr to get home (only 2 mile drive. Had it towed to the dealer (it was still under warrenty, and they told me the fuel pump was out. The fix was $794 [img]graemlins/omg.gif[/img]

But sounds like you have same problem as me just the "Check Gauges" light isnt going on or SES...

Well anyway good luck w/ it! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[OneQuickSix]

Dom-

Ok this might sounds stupid to you... but the past couple of days I have been experienceing my car randomly dying also. It turns out that the positive cable for the batttery was loose!!

Does the car crank but not turn over after it dies?

Just some food for thought. ;)

Good luck!

-Joe

[DominusEtDeusNatus]

I went over the wiring today. Everything seems to be wired good. The voltage level is good 14V-15V.

So the fuel pump can be dying? It's a strong possibility now. It's dying more and more frequently now. I'll put lot of gas in it and then I'll run it in idle till it dies and then check real quick if the fuel pump works. I wish I had a fuel pressure gauge.

[James]

Been havin that same prob with my 3.8 just all of a sudden with no wanring, and I am only at 20k hit that yesterday

[DominusEtDeusNatus]

I'll post it if the fuel pump was the problem. I have seen fuel pumps die with less then 10K on the clock.

I'm just hoping I can get to and from the muffler shop. Damn thing is rusted on. I would have been done with the swap otherwise.

[strange_trp]

check passkey-ii system too. a fault in this system cuts both fuel and igntion.
make sure you have good ground for the module as well as the sensor (ground voltage drop for sensor or pcm should be &lt; 0.1vdc.). my old rs did this and it ended up being the ref voltage wire to the pass-key sensor had come loose from its connector.

not saying this IS the cause, but a possibility. do you get batt+ at ign coils with ign switch on? do you get batt+ to injectors?

intermittent problems like this one are difficult to diagnose because they aren't usually there when you're testing for them....