05 town and country stalling for no reason

[jehanny]

when sitting at a light or while breaking to turn my 05 Town and country periodically stalls. Ideas? No check engine light or other warning light is on when this occurs or after the engine is restarted. If I break left footed and keep the gas depressed it doesn't seem to stall or I can pull it out of the stall.

[tempfixit]

Originally Posted by jehanny

when sitting at a light or while breaking to turn my 05 Town and country periodically stalls. Ideas? No check engine light or other warning light is on when this occurs or after the engine is restarted. If I break left footed and keep the gas depressed it doesn't seem to stall or I can pull it out of the stall.

Have you checked the Idle Air Control passage for carbon build up?? Clean throttle body see if that helps.

[RIP]

First cycle the ign key from off to on (not start) 3 times then read the codes displayed on your odometer just to make sure there's no codes.

The idle air control valve (IAC) is a suspect or it's port inside the throttle body (TB) may be gummed up. It maintains the spec idle when the throttle valve is closed at idle. Does turning on the A/C or cranking the steering hard kill the engine? Don't have increased RPMs on cold starts. If so that's more evidence the IAC valve or port has a problem. You having to press the gas pedal to keep it running is another indication. Pressing the pedal opens the throttle plate bypassing the IAC port. The valve is located on the bottom aft side of the TB. You can remove that big black air intake tube from the throttle body and spray the IAC port with a carb or TB cleaner.

[jehanny]

it did stall once while idling when I turned the A/C on.

[jehanny]

I took off the air filter cover and tried to clean out the throttle body with throttle body cleaner. Today after driving at about 65mph for 30 minutes, the engine light started blinking and the van struggled to keep running. My wife pulled over, and turned the engine off. When she restarted it the engine light was on but not blinking. I let it run for about 20 solid minutes at idle and no additional symptoms arose and it appeared to run smoothly. It did throw the P0335 CKP Sensor A Circuit Performance error code. Ideas? Suggestions?

[RIP]

It indicates you have a problem in the crankshaft position sensor circuit.

The crankshaft sensor sends rpm data to the Powertrain Control Module (PCM). This data is used to determine engine timing. If the signal is lost you'll experience stalling, hesitation, no or hard starting or all the above. Since it generally takes an oscilloscope to troubleshoot it, DIYers will usually inspect the wire harness and connections. If all is well they change the sensor. It's located on the driver's side down on the transmission bell housing. You can confirm the sensor is getting it's 5 volt reference voltage using a multimeter and schematic. The sensor can be had for as little as $20 from any parts store or around $50 for an OEM sensor from the dealer.

Anytime the Service Engine Soon light blinks in a continuos pattern it means you have a fault that can do serious harm. Hug your wife. She made the right move.

Which engine do you have?

[jehanny]

3.8 (it is the touring edition). so all of the above symptoms could point to that sensor?

[RIP]

I used "all the above" as a figure of speach to mean all of the symptoms stated in the sentence could happen, not just one or the other.

Do stalling while braking and while sitting at stop lights scream crank sensor to me? Based on the fact you said nothing about stalling at any other times I'd say no. No, but that just means it wouldn't be my first choice. A crank sensor can fail at any time with symptoms ranging from a stumble at speed every 5th time you drive it to you not being able to start the van. They are fickle as fickle can be. Do you have two problems now? Could be, but my gut feeling is this is all related. Now that you have an error code, I would do what it takes to fix the code then see if all the symptoms vanish. What to do. See post #6

When it stalls idling at a light does it stall as soon as you come to a stop or anytime while idling? Nearly everytime or every 10th time? Same for braking. What I'm getting at is the more intermittently it happens, the more it may point to a crank sensor and away from the IAC.