'95 Jetta III GL won't start now

[stevemen]

I left for a week and my Jetta sat for that long. It was running fine before but now on the first day I returned it ran a bit rough. On the second day it decided to just die on me. I waited for about an hour and tried turning it on again and it started but a few minutes later it just shut down again. I parked it, waited till the next day to see what I can do, turned the car on, drove it home, (about 5 miles), it ran OK, I turned it off and came back about 1/2 hour later, turned it on and about 2 or 3 minutes later it shut off again. I replaced the fuel filter, still the same. It does seem that fuel is getting to the filter but not sure if this is a fuel problem or a spark problem now.

Any suggestions out there?

Sincerely,
"Desperately seeking HELP"

[boschmann]

The next time it quits & won't restart pull the coil wire & place it near a ground while cranking to check for spark.

[stevemen]

I found that the the distributor cap and rotor needed to be replaced. I replaced them, was able to start it up but now the problem is that it idles very rough.

Thanks for the previous suggestion on the coil. Any suggestions with this idle problem now?

I have read up on the engine speed sensor, knock sensor. Could one of these cause the idle problem? How about the oxygen sensor?

Thanks again for all your help....

[boschmann]

Is the check engine light on?

[stevemen]

No the check engine light does not come on.

[boschmann]

You may need to run it a bit before a code sets. Until then it is hard to guess at it from here.

[stevemen]

This car is being driven every day and at no time does the "check engine light" come on.

I have put a timing light on all wires to make sure that I was getting a consistant spark to all plugs and they are. I have thoroughly cleaned the throttle body and MAF which had no effect on the performance. I have put a volt meter on the oxygen sensor to make sure that it is doing what it should be and I do get small voltage coming from it as the engine is running and it will change when you unplug one of the injector wires. I have checked the voltage on the engine speed sensor and it is at normal, according to the spec's from the service manual. The only sensor that I was not able to get what the manual referenced was the IAC. It said that I should be getting 5 volts coming from the EMC to the IAC but I couldn't get anything.

Now of course this is all new to me, checking the resistance/voltage on the various sensors, so it could be that I was doing it wrong. I tried to follow the service manuals suggestions and like I said the only questionable device was the IAC.

Does any of this spark a thought.......?

Thanks

[stevemen]

Oh... I forgot to mention that it is really bad when I first start it up and will cut out unless I hold it at a higher rpm until it warms up then after warming up it will stay at about 800 rpm's.

[boschmann]

I can't get a good idea of what it's actually doing from your fist post. Is it running okay then just randomly shuts down after a while? Does it start okay or does it not start anymore?

[stevemen]

I guess I should say that the original post was that the car just wouldn't start. Then I replaced the distributor cap and rotor and now it does start but very rough idle. To get it to stablize when first turning it on would be to keep my foot on the gas for about 5 minutes. If I didn't do this it would shut off. Even after it warms up you can still feel a slight stutter/missing. I monitored all the wires with a timing light to see if I saw any eratic behavior but didn't on any of the wires.