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Car starts then dies immediately

A

Acclipse

New CEG'er
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
7
My wife's Contour ('96 2.0L ATX) started acting up last week. As we were driving it felt like the engine shut off but restarted on its own seconds later while the car was still moving, all electric accessories continued to work while this happened. It then died at a stop sign. I managed to get it to start and to get it home.

Once home it would start and either idle extremely rough or die immediately. I checked the MAF because I just replaced it and found a short in the wiring. I fixed the wiring and now it dies immediately after starting. I can get it to continue to run if I press the throttle although it is extremely rough (almost sputtering) and dies as soon as I take my foot off the gas. If I unplug the MAF it will run (rough, but it will run).

No CEL during all of this.

I seem to recall reading somewhere (maybe here) that the Contour will just revert to some sort of stock table or a limp mode if it doesn't see a signal from the MAF. If that is the case then I have to assume that some other sensor or wiring is defective (MAF tested fine) and that by unplugging the MAF the car is ignoring whatever is defective. Am I correct in this? If so what does this sound most like (camshaft position sensor, crankshaft position sensor, etc.)?
 
Battery and alternator test fine. I have a code scanner and there are no stored codes :shrug:
 
IAC is a pain to get to. I will test it later when it cools down outside, it's too hot for me right now :laugh:

Would a defective IAC cause the car to die while driving like my wife's Contour did? :confused: The car does idle and run when it is started with the MAF unplugged, it is just a little on the rough side. I would have thought that it wouldn't be capable of such a feat if the IAC were defective.
 
Miles?
Last timing belt?


Check engine static timing.

Check for exhaust backpressure. When cats crumble and clog it can cause poor idle, loss of power, and overheating.
 
During testing I got the following two codes pending now: P0103(Mass Air Flow (MAF) Circuit High Input) and P0113(Intake Air Temperature (IAT) Circuit High Input).

This certainly seems like a wiring issue to me. Anyone know where I should start looking? Everything looks good at the connectors.
 
as mentioned above, wiring harness recall, start checking the wiring and look for the insulation cracking and peeling off the wiring. you want to check associated wires but start with wires on the top of the cooling fan shroud as they seem to go bad first and might be an indication of your dilema. the other thing is, go through and check all your spark plugs and wires. if you have plus wires that are starting to go bad and there is too much resistance building up and it will overheat the coil pack and it will cause it to hic-up (seriously). plus that is easy to do and it eliminates and easier thing right away.
 
striker2 said:
did it ever have the wiring harness recall performed?
Click to expand...

I don't know the car's complete history(it's my wife's) but based on the condition of the wiring I would confidently say there is no chance in hell the wiring recall was performed.
 
Got it running. The IAC looked clean and seemed to operate fine when I had it off the car but I replaced it when I ran out of options and it's ran fine ever since. It doesn't seem to explain the codes though. :shrug:


Anyway, thanks for all the help guys. :D
 
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