Weird Problem, very Scary.....

Ok, it started this morning, but when I left from work, on the ride home, every time i hit the brakes, the car wanted to stall. the brakes felt all sluggish, and felt like they were grinding. About 3 hours later, I got in the car again to go to the library, and it started fine, but as soon as I pressed the brake in, and shifted into reverse.... the car died. I started it and it did the same thing. I started it back up a third time, turned the overdrive off... and quickly shifted into reverse, and let go the brake quickly, it almost died, then quickly roared backward like I had pressed the gas, which I didn't. when the brake was pressed to shift from R to D, it seemed to want to die again, but barely held on. I drove to my dealer, to have him look at it. Every time I hit the brakes, the car would sluggishly stop, and have a little surge here and there, and the revs dropped to 500 and then back up to about 750. About 1 mile away from my dealer, when i would say the car was totally warmed up, the problem was gone. I stopped the car, let it sit for a bit, started it up, shifted it, no problems.... why would it do this if the car was cold as hell?? it didn't do this last winter. its a 1998 Se with the 3.0L duratec in it.

You'll have to have the codes read from the EEC-V. This is the first step on any modern car; whatever trouble codes have been stored will point you in the right direction.

The dealer can read them, although if you have an Autozone near you, I understand they will read them for free.

Good luck and keep us posted.

ok, sorry it took so long, but I haven't been able to get online for a really long time. Well, the problem seems to have fixed it self..... I went out that evening, and when I got back to the car, at 3:00am, after it had been sitting for over 8 hours... it was cold out, the car was covered in condensation, just like before.... and it started up fine, shifted fine, braked fine.... it seems like it was just a one time thing, but it freaked me out, cause I don't know what caused it, or if it will happen again. I'll keep you guys posted.

There should be a code stored in Keep Alive Memory, or Continuous Memory, or whatever they call the fault log in the EEC-V. I highly recommend getting it read - if it ever happens again, you'll know where to start looking and may even find the problem yourself - and $ave the $hop fees!

Good luck with it!

never leave something like that without explaination!... my bet is either your electrical system is going... your rotars and seizing up and not letting the engine turn over... or your brake lines are messed up in a way (binded, old, blocked) get it checked man... by a mechanic not a salesman