I had my 2005 checked a couple of weeks ago and then “winter” hit East Tennessee. I was driving home in traffic and when I stopped the idle went low enough to make the car shake before it recovered. It never stalled; however, I was sure that was about to. I try to drive the car weekly and it was raining when this happened. Any thoughts?

 

Yes, more information def needed. However as a start, open the hood and while the engine is running remove the oil filler cap. Let us know what happened.


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When is the last time you changed air filters?

 

What's the mileage since the coils and plugs were changed? You could have a coil or a plug beginning to breakdown. Sitting in traffic could generate enough heat for a marginal coil to act up.

 

I’m sorry for not responding, we had the grandkids this weekend. It happened to me while we were having lots of rain (humidity) and it was stop and go traffic. My wife says that it’s happened to her on sunny days. I had the car serviced less than a month ago for the standard things at 90K.

 

If the plugs, wires, and coils have never been changed within the 90K miles I would have this done as a preventative maintenance step. Replacing the RCM, cam position sensor, and crank position sensor are also good items to replace. The RCM is probably the most problematic control identified on this forum. Once the marginal cold soldered connections on the RCM pc board are repaired and relays replaced the reliability of this control is dramatically improved.

 

I had the RCM serviced late this summer. It “should be” serviced up to 100K miles (it’s about 90K now). I’ll keep you updated on what they find. I appreciate the feedback. 👍

 

I had the RCM serviced late this summer. It “should be” serviced up to 100K miles (it’s about 90K now). I’ll keep you updated on what they find. I appreciate the feedback. 👍

 

THought 1: If it happened once and not since, forget it.
Thought 2: A car with those miles should have plugs and plug wires replaced. My Graphite was doing odd stuff around 100,000 miles that didn't add up I put 12 plugs and wires in it (ordered from Rob at Needswings, not Autozone crap) and everything cleared up right away. "
Thought 2A: Do not waste time "diagnosing" a car that has not had regular maintenance done. Original plugs and wires at almost 100,000 are at/beyond their service life.
Thought 2B: I'd not replace coils right now. Im not of the mindset that coils go bad nearly as often or as soon as plugs and wires, but coils are something to keep in mind as you go thru this.
THought 3: You never clearly answered the question of how old your air filters are. While at it, keep in mind the seal at the MAF intake and airbox is known to get 'loosy-goosy", this break of the seal changes the volume of air/vacuum drawn by the engine. This also means that one MUST secure the airbox in place properly and completely, this has come up before on here.
Thought 4: Vacuum leak? To check for a leak, warm engine by driving the car for 1/2 hour or more. PLace in Park/neutral. Raise hood. Yank the oil cap off. If the engine does not change it's idle at all, you have a pretty bad leak. If the engine speeds and slows, shakes and kinda freaks out, you have no real vacuum leak to speak of. You see, yanking the cap off creates an instant, severe vacuum leak and the engine should freak out due to this. If it does not, there is already a vacuum leak or horrible intake problem.

You might grab a code reader and see if there are any codes or pending codes and post them here for us. All we need are codes in the format: P0xxx where the x's are numbers 0-9.

 

Change plugs if they have not been changed, change the wires as a matter of routine. I see no reason to change the coils as they seem to be very sturdy, they were not made by Lucas.
A vacuum leak would show up consistently I would say.
As mentioned before you should look at the air filters, but you said you had a service just recently so that should not be a problem.
Think seriously about any diagnosis a garage gives you, good luck.

 

I’m having the place that I take the car to focus on the items that you mentioned. I have maintenance records at the house, but, not with me. I really appreciate the help.

 

Exactly.
I do not understand why so many think that replacing all the coils is a part of 'regular maintenance'.

 

I have the same issue with my 2004, however it only happens once on any drive cycle, and only after I stop (at a traffic light) after the engine is up to temp.

It's weird in that it only will do it once, usually at my first intersection after the engine is warmed up. It won't do it again until it has a complete cool down and cold start.

I'm at 100K now, so I intend to do all the maintenance mentioned in this thread, so we'll see eventually if it goes away.