95 jetta III manual

my engine dies when the rpms get too low, so i have to try to keep them above 1000.. but this doesn't happen all the time. i tried to figure out if it only happened when the engine was cold or what, but it really seems more random than that, because some days it runs good then others it doesn't.

any ideas?

If it stalls mainly when the engine is NOT cold (First couple minutes) then your idle stabilizer valve is probably sticking. This is one of the most common things to cause stalling.