The Car Care Clinic with the Dr John

96 Plymouth Voyager van - Stalling

JW

Question

Dr. John I have a 1996 Plymouth Voyager van with 184000 kms on her and it just recently started to stall when you slow to an idle at a stop sign etc or backing up. When travelling down the road there is no problem as of yet. I have tried gas line antifreze and premium gas with no avail.

Answer

Hi JW! Well this could be many things, I am going to list some of them and also the most common one that causes this problem 99% of the time.

• CTS ( coolant temperature sensor )
• Temperature sensor/switch
• TPS ( throttle position sensor )
• IAC ( Idle air control) valve
• ISC ( Idle speed control ) actuator
• EGR ( exhaust gas recirculation ) valve.

Now all of these are normally checked out by having the garage perform a " fault code review " so that the technician can read all the sensors and find out if they are or aren't working within their normal parameters. Now with the IAC valve this could very well just want cleaning. Plus while that is being done the throttle plate should also be cleaned as this gets varnished up as bad as the IAC valve.

With that amount of mileage on the vehicle, have you ever had the injectors cleaned with a ' Motorvac ' unit of similar machine? If not then this could also be a source for stalling.

Good Luck!
Dr. John