Recently when stopping at redlight or stop sign(complete stop,not when slowing down then going),the engine shuts off.Put on park,then start again,it goes back to normal.Happening 2,3 times a week when driving to work,commuting time about half an hour.What are possible causes?Please help.Thanks.

 

Sounds like stopping has nothing to do with it, and it is really caused by either it's shutting off randomly and being at a stop sign/light is a coincidence, or, if the stop sign/light is the factor, then perhaps the engine gets slightly hotter then and causes some electrical break.

Trying to find it though, when it is working, can't be done. So it has to be a guess, based on others experiences with your car/mileage, service bulletin or whatever - or hope it gets worse and lasts longer so you can test when it happens.

 

I usually drive at 50-55 mph,when stopping abruptly,the gas supply still coming too much to make engine kind of flood ?Just a thought.

 

should be fuel injected, gas supply will not coming too much. could be something like bad ground at tank so that when you stop fast momentary loss of connection, could be wires on the engine lossing connection momentarly, get my drift. you will need to do some wiggle tests of wireing to see if anything shuts it down. does it show a check engine light when it dies? does it sputter and then die? does it just die like turning off the switch?
true camper quote:"are these rocks man made?"

 

First thing I'd do before spending a lot of money, is to remove the air cleaner assy at the throttle body intake, and spray it good in there with throttle body cleaner. (with engine off obviously). Also move your throttle to open position during spraying and spray plate etc, that you see as well as around the entire inside of the throttle body, especially in areas where you see what looks like little pinholes. While your at it, add a bottle of "heet" to your gas tank, just in case you have moisture in fuel tank. Then drive it for a while & see if it helps. When was your last spark plug change/check? I'd try the cheap & easy things first.

 

Schmidt or Hall effect pickup coils in distributors can go bad. Magnetism in there can get weak. Heard on car repair radio call-in show today (a rerun from April) on abrupt engine shut offs, Sam was talking about this. He said on the Schmidt type the sine wave pattern loses it's square wave pattern? and you have to replace distributor itself to get shaft with good magnetism again. Something on that order, anyway.

Not that this IS your problem, but something for all of us to keep in mind if our engines ever just sporadically shut off (NOT sputtering off as if it is running out of gas), as if shutting off the key, and then you are able to restart it again in seconds.