I am a college student aka I am poor. I have put almost $500 into “fixing” this problem…and as you probably guess, it isn’t fixed.
I have a 2000 Mazda Protege LX, Automatic, 122,000 miles, all oil changes have been timely, sparks plugs have been changed, Mass Air Flow sensor has been replaced. Battery is new.
Twice now I have been coming to a stop and my engine will die. Once I was driving straight, coming to a light. The second time it stalled, I was attempting to make a right turn, again, slowing down.
The first time the car stalled I was able to crank it back up, but the tachometer was bouncing around, very jumpy, all the way home. It would get almost to the point of stalling out again - as the tachometer would be almost at 0.
The second time the car stalled I was not able to crank it again for about 30 minutes. It would crank, catch and try to keep running, but each time the tachometer would jump abnormally (similar to how a car jumps when you are running out of gas…more of a sputter) and then die again. My thoughts are I flooded the engine somehow.
I took it directly to the mechanic after the second episode. After I got it cranked, the car drove fine all the way there. They had it for two days and still couldn’t find anything wrong. They even drove it around hooked up to the computer hoping it would fire a code.
Computer code has been: P0106. The P0106 problem was supposedly fixed by cleaning carbon from my EGR port.
After the last stall the code did show a misfire in the engine, but did not tell the mechanic where.
The latest code shows that my barometric sensor is failing, but according to the mechanic this should not be what is causing my problems.
The car will also have problems starting occasionally. Doesn’t matter if it is cold or if I have been traveling all day. It will turn over, but not crank (catch). After I wait a bit it will crank. (again, symptomatic of a flooded engine?)
The last thing I can think of that is weird is that my radio will loose power randomly. The car hasn’t been running funny when it will do this. It is an aftermarket radio and may have nothing to do with everything else.
HELP!