94 sable problems, stalls, rough idle etc...

[spunger]

Hey guys,

I'm asking this question for my mom. I'm a chevy guy (sorry) and she owns a 1994 mecury sable which she is having problems with. She maybe a month ago kept telling me that the car stalls at red lights. I thought it was BS because I know the car doesn't know when a red light comes up and just decides to stall. While in drive, foot on the brake, she claims the car just stalls and then you can turn the key and start it right back up. She's been driving it like this for the last month or so and has lived with it but I'd like to see if I can fix it for her.

I've taken the car myself and have had the idle drop below 500 rpm's while in drive with my foot on the gas, basicly it idles pretty rough but at times it will idle rough enough to shut the engine off. This doesn't happen all the time, as it's a random thing to get the car to shut off, but the low idle and surging idle while in drive and foot on the brake will happen 9 out of 10 times. Tonight while driving it I got it to almost stall and the oil light in the left hand dash corner came on. It flashed for a split second while the idle dropped and then went off.

I'm at my wits end with this. She's tried the injector cleaner, different gas, we changed the oil and filter, everything else seems to be ok other than this problem. Any help on it would greatly be appricated.

Thanks,
Chris

[PTG1212]

I have a 94 Sable with 3.8L engine. I had a problem similar to what you are experiencing. The car would idle rough. Over time it began to stall and stalling became progressively worse, mostly when idling for stop light. My problem was a cracked (nearly completely open) vacuum line. I suggest you carefully inspect the vacuum lines. For the most part they are easily assessible. Interesting that once I replaced the rotted vacuum line, the car ran great, but my check engine light came on. Went to Autozone and had the code read. Bad EGR valve. I replaced the EGR valve, the light went out and the car is running great and passed emissions testing well within the specs. Good luck.