eagle talon - no idle, car stalls at stop - please help!

[dkitty]

my 1996 talon esi (80,000K miles, 2.0 L , manual transmission) has reciently started stalling whenever I come to a stop or throw the gear to neutral. It works fine when driving, shifts smoothly, and only dies when i come to a halt. The RPMs fall rapidly when i push in the clutch and the engine shuts off and plumments below 800 RPMS (when the idle normally kicks in). Then, to restart the beast, i need to floor the acceleration. When i finally managed to limp my car home (without stopping at stop signs completely - bad me!), it was idling fine in both neutral and in 1st gear (at a stop) which is exactly what it wasn't doing the way home and most of yesterday. It's as if my car had no idle at all during the duration of the trip. This problem seems to come and go at random, so i'm thinking perhaps a valve?

please help! i rely on this car as my only form of transportation and any response would be appriciated.

-cindy

[email protected]

[inatalonIXLR8]

I wonder if it's your alternator. If it's starting to go, then it would run off the battery, and weaken it for the next time you try to start it.

Try starting the car with jumper cables attached to another vehicle. If it fires up better, then it's something to do with the charging system. A couple other things you should do are, once the car is running, tap the side of the alternator with a screwdriver or wrench (something metal) and see if there is a strong magnetic force. Watch your fingers! And secondly, make sure the alt belt isn't loose. (check this with the car shut off ofcourse)

[dkitty]

Originally Posted by inatalonIXLR8

I wonder if it's your alternator. If it's starting to go, then it would run off the battery, and weaken it for the next time you try to start it.

Try starting the car with jumper cables attached to another vehicle. If it fires up better, then it's something to do with the charging system. A couple other things you should do are, once the car is running, tap the side of the alternator with a screwdriver or wrench (something metal) and see if there is a strong magnetic force. Watch your fingers! And secondly, make sure the alt belt isn't loose. (check this with the car shut off ofcourse)

thanks, that sounds like a good thing to check. That might be accurate since my sterio has been acting wierd lately (like it's not getting enough power) which is exactly what happened last time my belt broke and the battery wasn't getting any juice.

i'll let you know how it turns out

[inatalonIXLR8]

Right on! Alot of people ask for help, but you never hear how it turns out.

[WrecklessMM]

check the ecu under the dash

[inatalonIXLR8]

So how did that turn out? Any progress?

[dkitty]

Problem solved!

it was a tiny leak in the vacuum system above the throttle, there were some cracks in one of the hoses. I didn't even need to buy a new part, i just snipped off the cracked bit and refit it. It works beautifully now! no stalling, and it runs much better.

Thanks for all of the great advice XD

[Legasus233]

I used to have a '92 Talon with the same symptoms. After much squabling with my mechanic, he looked into it a little further and we found the throttle body was gummed up really bad, causing the stalling. That was it. The gummed throttle body had caused issues of idle surging as well. When it was really cold out, when first started, the cars idle would surge between 750 and 2500, until warm. Again, cleaning the throttle body really helped