Engine Stalls 96 Neon Expresso SOHC

[sarah255]

I am having serious engine stalling issues with my Neon. It's a 1996 SOHC Expresso model. The first major issue was 2 years ago with the replacement of the fuel pump twice in 3 months. After that, the car was fine.

Recently, my engine has been stalling. (70K miles on the car) It began on a highway drive. The pressure sensors went wild, the car chugged violently and died. After 3-4 minutes it came back to life and went another 10-15 miles before pulling the same stop and start act.

Luckily a friend has a 96 Neon 4 door model and had similar problems. So we followed his suit. Changed the spark plugs (upgraded the quality) and wires. Found oil on one of the plugs as well. Replaced the cam sensor. (1996 models have a recall for this item) Replaced the spark plug valve seals and the seal around the engine. The car ran fine for about a week. Then the same engine stalling occured. The stalling can occur when accelerating, decelerating, and idling. The car only seems to want to go about 15-20 miles before pulling this stunt. Sometimes less. And the car always restarts. There also seems to be a chugging sound from the engine when the car begins stalling.

What else could it be? I rechecked the spark plugs for oil and they are looking clean. I'm fairly certain it's not a head gasket or vacum leak like my auto book suggests. And I doubt it's fuel pump related. I have heard from a mechanic that it might be an exhaust issue, fuel injector issue, or coil issue. Does this sound right?

Please help. Any ideas?

[pegasus757]

if you had a fuel injector issue, chances are it would only be one injector and the car would miss on one cylinder ( the pcm will give a code 27)...if it was an exhaust problem the car would idle and not reach highway speeds. you can checkthis with a simple vacume gauge. it does sound like an ignition coil, but thats hard to say . the coil , crankshaft sensor , and camshaft sensor have windings that sometimes open (loss of continuity),when they get hot, all can be checked using a chiltons manual specific to make and model and a volt-ohm meter. these two items are essential if you are serious about doing work on your own car

[carguyinok]

This maybe out there But with my Neon it started acting up in about the same way. Mine was the plug on the coil pack Turns out the clip was cracked. As the motor was run the plug would work it's way out. The part that still makes me Some how it would make it back in just far enough so it would run untill it lost contact again
Good luck. Hope its that easy.

[sarah255]

Thank you guys for your insight. We had a hunch it might be coil related.

I checked the codes again this morning. Here is what I got:

11 - timing belt skipped 1 tooth or more initial learned value
intermittent loss of either camshaft or crankshaft position sensor
no crank reference signal detected during engine cranking

43 - multiple/single cyclinder misfire

17 - closed loop temp not reached or engine cold too long

Now 11 and 43 make sense to me. I had the cam sensor replaced and the car seems to be misfiring. But I don't get 17. I live in the freaking desert. It's definetley not cold here. And I drive the vehicle everyday. Can anyone explain what that means?

[pegasus757]

when a car first starts up it is in open loop (meaning the car is running rich during the warm up period,) after that it goes into closed loop . in closed loop the car has the perfict air to fuel ratio. may need new thermostat ortemp sensor . code 43 is also ignition coil, code 11 is also for camshaft and crankshaft sensor.. this is what you need to do 1) disconnect battery for 15sec.(clear codes) 2) connect battery and run car in the drive way at about 2000 rpms (hopefully it will die out on you). 3) read codes again . you will get 12 because you diconnected the battery and 15 because at 2000 rpms the car thinks its driving down the street. forget 12,and 15 . 4) post results

[sarah255]

Alright. So I followed your advice and reset the codes. Took awhile for the car to die since it's been cold. I got the 43 misfire code and the battery one of course. What's strange is that I had cleared the codes prior when I was doing the spark plug and gasket work. And the codes I had than were the ones I posted previously.

So what's going on? Is my computer fucked and reporting false codes? Or is misfire the only one that's real? Gah. And if so, what the hell am I supposed to fix next. Jeez, this car is starting to give me a headache.

[sarah255]

So today the car stalls out again. Giving me the 11 code on top of the 43 code. Nice. That's the crank, timing belt or cam code. The cam is already replaced. And as I suspected the crank might need replacing too.

Any ideas on why the car is "discovering" new codes?

[azmxer]

Hi Sarah,

Does the car run normal otherwise? no loss of power?

[sarah255]

Yeah the car seems to work fine otherwise. I've read about several people have electrical issues with their Neon's. But I'm lucky and haven't run into that. I'm going to have the crank sensor replaced this weekend and if the problem still occurs replace the computer and ignition coil pack after that. It's just one of those hard to pin point issues.

[MyBlueBalls]

Just a thought have you tried changing out your speed sensor?

[always420]

Code 11 is timing belt, get it changed I learned the hard way and had the same symptoms and tried all of the above. It turned out to be the belt which broke in the meantime crushing 4 intake valves.$$$$$

[neon4life]

Originally Posted by sarah255

I am having serious engine stalling issues with my Neon. It's a 1996 SOHC Expresso model. The first major issue was 2 years ago with the replacement of the fuel pump twice in 3 months. After that, the car was fine.

Recently, my engine has been stalling. (70K miles on the car) It began on a highway drive. The pressure sensors went wild, the car chugged violently and died. After 3-4 minutes it came back to life and went another 10-15 miles before pulling the same stop and start act.

Luckily a friend has a 96 Neon 4 door model and had similar problems. So we followed his suit. Changed the spark plugs (upgraded the quality) and wires. Found oil on one of the plugs as well. Replaced the cam sensor. (1996 models have a recall for this item) Replaced the spark plug valve seals and the seal around the engine. The car ran fine for about a week. Then the same engine stalling occured. The stalling can occur when accelerating, decelerating, and idling. The car only seems to want to go about 15-20 miles before pulling this stunt. Sometimes less. And the car always restarts. There also seems to be a chugging sound from the engine when the car begins stalling.

What else could it be? I rechecked the spark plugs for oil and they are looking clean. I'm fairly certain it's not a head gasket or vacum leak like my auto book suggests. And I doubt it's fuel pump related. I have heard from a mechanic that it might be an exhaust issue, fuel injector issue, or coil issue. Does this sound right?

Please help. Any ideas?

First of all i would try check all ur ground wires. If that dosent work i would check all ur positive wires for shorts.

[neon4life]

dose the speedometer work?

[sarah255]

Yeah. The speedometer works fine and so do all the other gauges. I'm pretty certain it isn't a short due to the consistency of the issue. Since the desert weather has kicked in the car can't take the heat thus stalls out much faster. We're fairly certain it's oil related. I'm probably going to have the crank sensor replaced and possibly the computer.

[neon4life]

dose the problem still happen even if all acc. are shust off, as in, no radio,lights.?