Hello
We have a Chrysler town and country minivan and in the morning when we start the car for the first time it will start normally and then we back out of our driveway without touching the gas then stop, put it in drive and then when you step on the gas the car will ether die or it sounds like it died for 1/4 to 1/2 a second then it will kick back in. It will do this untill the engine is warm and then it won’t do it for the rest of the day unless it is left off for many hours. Help!! We have been trying to track this problem down for about 2 years now.
Jake
If you have been trying to track it down for 2 yrs how about you save everybody (including youself) a lot of time by listing out everything that has been done, including basic maintenance items, components tested, components replaced, if any.
Three things I’d wonder about from the start are whether the idle air control (IAC) valve has been cleaned; whether or the coolant temperature sensor has been checked; and whether fuel pressure has been observed beginning from a cold start.
We have only done a few things. We have got a lot of different ideas.
We had a full tune up done and that fixed it for a short while. More recently we had the whole fuel lines cleaned and that didn’t seem to work.
I was planning on checking the AIC this week do you know how har it is to remove? I’m very handy and I have a lot of tools.
Jake
Though I’ve not looked on this van, the IAC is usually pretty easy to pull as it is mounted right to the throttle body, often with only 2 small bolts. I would have either a new gasket or some gasket-making paper on hand in the event that the old gasket is not reusable (a good possibility).
As long as you’re mucking around under there you may as well clean the throttle body/throttle plate as well.
If you have an electrical multimeter the coolant temp sensor is very easy to check - you measure its resistance from cold to hot engine & it should go up as per specs. You can likely find the specs via Autozone’s online repair manuals.
the coolant temp sensor can be tested without the IAC valve removed right?
and I believe that the IAC is mounted with 2 TORX bolts. I have a digital multimeter for robotics so i’ll go ahead and test it tommorow morning. Do you think that the IAC and the trottle body would have been cleaned during the tune up? how long do you think the removal/cleaning of the IAC and the throttle body and plate will take?
thanks,
Jake
I’ve got a possible fix for you that worked for me. I have a 2002 that had the very same problem. Mine would stall-out for the first 10-15 minutes everytime I came to a stop, backed up, and a few times in the middle of a turn. The engine would also idle wildly jumping around between 1000 and 3500 rpms. After driving it for awhile there was no problem unless I turned it off and didn’t drive it until much later in the day. So here’s the fix: Replace the Throttle-Position Sensor (TPS). Although when this part does not function a computer test by your mechanic should normally identify this part as the problem, the computer was not picking up the malfunction in my case - and from what I’ve read that may be because the TPS was intermittently working. And the best part, the total repair bill was only $95. (I believe the part was $64 and the rest labor.) Hope this works for you.