Our 1994 Ford Taurus stalls when I slow down or stop. You suggested the ignition module - a good idea, but our mechanic says that’s not it. Do you have any other suggestions? We can’t drive the car, since it likes to stop at red lights and refuse to start again for several minutes.
Thanks!
An idle only problem is usually caused by a dirty or faulty Idle Air Control valve. Sometimes cleaning them with aerosol carb cleaner may help. It’s easy to remove and clean.
Another possibility, after the IAC of course, is a vacuum leak. This could be easily checked with the use of a vacuum gauge. Consider the IAC first and hope that helps.
If you have a mechanic working on it, it would be very helpful to tell us exactly what he has checked or done. Also if you already have a thread started on this question and have answers there, you should have continued the question as part of that thread as we would all have the benefit of what has gone before. Otherwise you are just going to get another set of the same suggestions.
If your mechanic is just looking at the suggestions made here (and under “Ford Taurus Stalls”) and summarily dismissing them, without any effort at confirmation, your car will not get fixed, and he’s dismissing us out of hand…
Have someone use a Carb/Throttle body spray cleaner to clean the inside of the intake tract. The intake tract includes the IAC (Idle Air Control) Valve, the throttle body bore, the throttle plate, and the etc.s.
Clean the MAF (Mass Air Flow) Sensor with MAF cleaner.
These cleanings are cheap and simple. Even a Geico ad agent can do them. Even if the idea sounds simple and simplistic, it can be effective for engine problems.
Thanks for the ideas. Our mechanic replaced the motherboard, but that didn’t help the problem. The car, unfortunately, refuses to stall when our mechanic drives it. Go figure. This has made it harder to diagnose the problem.
We’ll try these suggestions - thanks again.
Our mechanic told us that the problem was not the ignition module, which was the first thing that you all suggested was the problem. We tried another mechanic - and guess what? The problem was the ignition module! Thanks for all of your suggestions!
Dave
Go get a spark checker, it goes between plug and plug wire and it lites up everytime it fires cary it in car and when it does not start hook it up and it will tell you if it is ignition related
Once you fix it, you still have a 94 Taurus, a $500 car if it runs good. A real mechanic won’t make you fix your own car. I wouldn’t spend any more money on it anyway, so look for a car that runs good. You might end up saving money.
This time around, the problem was the ignition module; but, it could have been something else. When different people suggest different things, it doesn’t mean that they are dismissing other suggestions. It often means: “also, these ideas.”