Over the past month, my manual 1999 Saab 9-5 SE has been stalling out while I am driving. The first time it happened, I was in traffic and I noticed that the car was bucking a little. It stalled twice while I was still in motion- going about 15 mph. Right away, I can get the car to start back up so I can keep on driving. The other day, I was making a left hand turn and while I was in the turn, I noticed my steering and brakes didn’t work because it died again! This has happened 5 times in all. What is the deal! My battery is good and I just had the car serviced, so I really don’t know what to do. It is kinda scary driving it because I am worried that it will stall again and I will loose control over the power steering and brakes when I am going faster. Any suggestions? Thanks!
There’s not enough info known to be precise. It could be any one of a 100 things but some possibilities could be:
Poor electrical connection at a battery post or at the junction terminal if your particular model has that terminal. These should be cleaned every year or two.
Fuel pump failing. If the fuel filter has not been changed regularly then a pump is even more suspect.
Failing ignition switch. (electrical part)
Questions. When the car dies do the dashboard warning lights come on? If they do come on, the switch could possibly be eliminated as the cause.
Has the car been scanned for any codes?
I know that this sounds like an unlikely culprit, but I had mysterious stalling on my '91 Volvo that came and went. It might stall three times on the way home from work, or run two weeks without missing a single beat. It also stumbled occasionally when pulling away from a stop sign.
After checking/cleaning everything I could think of over a six month period, I put in a fresh set of inexpensive Denso copper spark plugs about four months ago. The old platinum plugs looked just fine, but had 50k miles on them, so they were about due.
I have had zero problem since the plugs were changed. Go figure.