hello
thank you for your responses, i have done nothing to correct this problem as of yet, car runs okay, surging idle, stalls infrequently…went back to the dealer, talked to the mech. he said you can first try to replace the bad 02 sensor (out of 4, only 1 is bad) this may correct the incorrect info that is being sent to the iac valve?..may work, may not work, their price $180 for one 02 sensor and $150 to install…see below for previous ?
the idle is surging, the dealership says $1000 to replace idle air control valve and all O2 sensors and it may or may not work. my backyard mechanic has no idea but is willing to take a shot at fixing it, car runs okay but occasionally stalls and the idle surges. the internet says you can drive it like this for years and replace the IAC valve if you want but skip the O2 sensors. what should i do?
It could be an IAC fault, but check for a vacuum leak first. (Intake manifold, all vacuum hoses, loose clamps on the air intake hose, etc)
Since you apparently had a thread going on this already, it would have been good to either update in that thread or at least post a link to that thread. There will be info in there that people can use.
Listen to Roadrunner and worry about vacuum leaks (see, but I’ll bet that’s come up already). You can find out if you likely have one rather quickly with a vacuum gauge. The easiest way to find one is with a smoke test - but that requires equipment. You can instead take a propane torch, turn on the gas - but don’t light - and feed gas around all underneath the hood around the intake & any vac hoses you see. The engine will tell you if you find a leak.
I agree with Roadrunner about checking for a vacuum leak first. This can easily be done in a few minutes with a vacuum gauge.