Engine dies at Stop Light

[sandyford]

My Ford Escort (2001) is behaving very irratic. When approaching stop light and I am gradualling coming to a halt, the car seems to be hesitant and at time seems to get stop. Now that happened before (just last week) when it did stop by itself and after atleast 15 minutes (during the time when I was calling for some help) it came back and started fine.


During this downtime, there was no activity from engine and nothing seems to trigger the engine to start (there is no sound of click or starter). Very strange. Mechanics couldn't find anything wrong, but I seriously think that this could happen again. What could be the reason for this

[yahoo1]

Originally Posted by sandyford

My Ford Escort (2001) is behaving very irratic. When approaching stop light and I am gradualling coming to a halt, the car seems to be hesitant and at time seems to get stop. Now that happened before (just last week) when it did stop by itself and after atleast 15 minutes (during the time when I was calling for some help) it came back and started fine.

During this downtime, there was no activity from engine and nothing seems to trigger the engine to start (there is no sound of click or starter). Very strange. Mechanics couldn't find anything wrong, but I seriously think that this could happen again. What could be the reason for this

I think that I read recently, that your problem has to be one of three things: Fuel, Electrical, or Compression. I'm not a mechanic, but I would guess that the cause of your car's stalling could easily be maybe any one of at least twenty five things (maybe as many as a HUNDRED things)!
In order for someone on this forum to help you, I think that you'll have to provide MUCH more info. regarding the problem (how long since your car had a tune-up, is your car an automatic transmission, does the idle fluctuate [go up and down], does the car perform OK on the highway, how many miles on your car, and on and on and on). Unfortunately, these problems are quite often very difficult to diagnose.
Good luck!!!!

[mightymoose_22]

As stated above, there could be a variety of issues and more information will be needed to narrow things down.
However, I will just suggest that the most likely problem will be a vacuum leak. Vacuum leaks can be hard to find, but are easy to fix.
Start by doing some troubleshooting and try to locate a vacuum leak. If you have no luck with that then we can move along to other possibilities.

[Davescort97]

Originally Posted by sandyford

My Ford Escort (2001) is behaving very irratic. When approaching stop light and I am gradualling coming to a halt, the car seems to be hesitant and at time seems to get stop. Now that happened before (just last week) when it did stop by itself and after atleast 15 minutes (during the time when I was calling for some help) it came back and started fine.


During this downtime, there was no activity from engine and nothing seems to trigger the engine to start (there is no sound of click or starter). Very strange. Mechanics couldn't find anything wrong, but I seriously think that this could happen again. What could be the reason for this

Are your battery terminals clean and tight?

[yahoo1]

Originally Posted by Davescort97

Are your battery terminals clean and tight?

Actually that happened to me the other day Dave! I had a garage on Front Street thoroughly check out my engine computer, and after I drove the car home, it wouldn't start again after I had let it sit for a few minutes. The mechanic quickly came to my house and the battery cable wasn't tight enough.

I'm sure that most of the gray (or missing) hairs on my head come from car problems, I think!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess they're (cars) are like a woman, a necessary evil. (that's a little humor ladies, don't get all bent out of shape.)

By the way Dave, my previous car severely troubled me for about 16 years! It was a 1988 Nissan Sentra, stick shift, and believe it or not, for almost ALL of those years it Idled MUCH too high when I first started it in the morning. I couldn't find any mechanic who could fix it, and the car ONLY had about 45,000 miles when I got rid of it last November (2006). Now you might have a clue as to why I'm "down" on modern cars.