Let me first say, i have very little knowledge on cars. I drive a 97 Ford Escort LX, automatic, 4cyl., front wheel drive with 194968km. For the last few days, when I have been hitting my brakes, and coming to a complete stop, i hear a chugging noise, my whole car vibrates, and i also feel vibrations under my brake pedal, but the steering wheel remains fairly still. Almost everytime this happens, my car will stall. When i go to restart it, it starts just fine (so far). I have noticed that this happens more in the mornings when i first start my car up, and it seems to be worse when i have a quarter tank or less of gas as opposed to a full tank. I just had work done to my brakes 4 months ago. I have been told it might be my fuel pump…can anyone give me some direction on what it may be?!
Generally with a fuel pump I’d expect problems with low power during acceleration. The engine needs little fuel pressure when idling, but much more at higher speeds.
In a car of this vintage and mileage, it’s probably an overdue tuneup, a plugged up and stuck EGR valve, a bad Idle Air Controller, or or perhaps even a vacuum leak or something routine of that sort. It could also be a worn out engine with poor and uneven compression.
The good news is that all of these things including the fuel pump can be checked pretty readily. The cause should be affordable. The bad news is that it’ll need to be done hands-on, we can’t give you a definitive answer from here. If you choose to do it yourself, simply pick up a repair manual and read the procedures.
One addendum. If it only does this with the brakes applied and not in Park, there’s also a chance that you have a vacuum leak in the brake booster, but this would be the last thing I’d suspect. Again, it’s easy to check for.
could be warped rotors?
Yes, i read that somewhere. Someone had similar problems, and turns out that’s what it was. So thanks for your reply…I’ll have to take it in.
Well, i replied to this advice, but to me it doesn’t look like it showed up. I want to thank you for these thoughts and replying so quickly! now i have an idea of what it could be, and i know i most definately need to take it somewhere. Are these things the type of problems that will get much worse the more i drive? That may be a stupid question, i really don’t know.