Dead Battery - no idle

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

Sorry, this will be a long question. Ok a little background:

Co-worker’s 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GT,convertible,(V6), Mileage approx. 67,000



Parked over the weekend without starting. Monday morning, the battery was dead (2 year old battery). At lunch I took her to the import auto place that sold the battery and picked up a replacement. I installed the new battery (lots of corrosion on the negative terminal) and the car started fine. The old battery had a small crack on the top near the negative terminal.



I went back to work and she called 5 minutes later to say the car had died and would stall whenever she stopped.



The car starts fine and runs well as long as you keep the gas pedal pressed (500 rpm or more) but immediatley dies (like the key is turned off) if you take your foot off the gas. Wal-Mart auto-tech replaced the end of the negative cable(where the corrosion was).



I drove the car (two footed since it’s an automatic) for 20 minutes and finally gave up and took it to a local Firestone Auto repair location (Wal-mart and Sears didn’t want to work on it)



Sorry for the long post but I was hoping for some insight and wanted you all the have the details. Any ideas as to what she should look for?

2

BTW, No service engine lights and no codes (per Wal-Mart tech with hand held reader)

3

You may be looking in the wrong place. This does not sound like a battery problem (new battery) or a charging system problem (no dash light). I suspect a bad IAC (idle air control) motor. When these things fail a car may run well but still stall at idle and leave no trouble code.

Of course, the problem may lie elsewhere, perhaps with the ignition system, but the IAC is my guess. Just don’t get hung up on bad battery notions.

4

Thanks, I’ll pass it along

5

Thanks for the input. The Firestone rep worked for 1 1/2 hours and finally figured he’d try resetting the engine computer. That fixed it. He charged her less than $50.00 so all is well.

6

I’d be surprised if that’s the permanent fix; by disconnecting the battery during its replacement and replacing the negative battery terminal you essentially reset the computer.