yesterday my husband decided to bumb start our car down a hill. unfortunately, he forgot to switch the key to the on position and now every time we stop the car the motor dies. it restarts, but won’t idle. Does anyone know what happened and is there an easy fix??
Forgetting to turn the ignition on should not have affected the engine at all. The engine may have been turning over during the attempted bump start, but that won’t hurt anything.
Idle speed is controlled by the Idle Air Control (IAC) valve. If the valve is sticking or dirty the idle speed can be adversely affected.
I assume the battery was low and would not start. If so, on some cars, the engine has to run for a while before it will again idle. Keeo the engine running with the accelerator until it will idle.
There are a number of “maybes”, but first, clean the idle air control valve (iacv) air passages, and the throttle plate and bore, with Throttle Body Cleaner. You might need to remove the iacv to do a better cleaning.