Car turns off in the middle of driving!

[hiimnotcool]

I just bought a 1996 TSI AWD today, and was assured time and time again there was nothing wrong with the car. everything looked good under the hood, test drove it and it was fine...bought it flat out, then got about 10 miles down the road and i had my foot pushing in on the clutch for a few seconds and the car turned off! I put it into 3rd gear and the car started going just like normal. Then I turned the car off. Started it back up, and it does it again in 1st gear. I have to rev high to even get it to stay on. Does anyone have any clue as to what the problem could be???

 

[Littlebeeper]

could be lots of things. bad IAC or vaccum leak. not too good of a description. on a better note.......i see you got properly introduced to a DSM on your 1st day. don't get down, once you fix the crap previous owners overlooked these cars are very reliable provided they aren't abused too badly. congrats and welcome

 

[Clutch GSX]

Make sure the battery wires are connected firmly, and the battery is charged, might also be alternator? Just a thought. Is the car modded at all? Might be a bad tune of some sort. The engine might be getting too much fuel or not enough. Its hard to say.

 

[SwitchSkier]

I actually have a problem similar to this. It happens pretty rarely for me, so I don't really worry too much, but since you brought it up, I'll chime in here too.

When I am going uphill, then let off the gas and push in the clutch, the revs will drop so fast that it is like the engine can't catch them at the botom and the car stalls. It sounds like your same problem so maybe someone can help.

 

[bacalhau16]

Yea, it could really be so many things. Do the dash lights dim before it shuts? Does it stumble?

 

[hiimnotcool]

thanks everyone for the replies. The dash lights do go dim and the car stumbles a bit. It happens when I hold the clutch in for too long. The oil, brake, and check engine light all turn on and the steering wheel stiffens up. I then punch into gear and it all stops. Maybe it's a boost leak. To the person who asked if it was modded, yes it is. Heavily. The engine is freshly rebuilt and has 400 miles on it as does the 18 g turbo. The clutch, flywheel and all of that have 3,000 miles on them. It doesn't do this all the time either, just randomly. I just went out to test it out around where I live and there was no problem. I used to have an Integra and never really had to learn to work on it, but I guess I'm gonna have to start immediately for this car..haha. I just really hope I wasn't ripped off =/

 

[bacalhau16]

Well, you didnt buy a Honda, thats for sure. You should just give the car a once over. Check your battery and its ground. Check all you hoses as well.

 

[darkiller_666]

Does it blow off atmospherically, when i tested mine out venting to the atmosphere and just plugging the intake, it did the exact same thing...

 

[Clutch GSX]

Yeah my car did that for a while after I seafoamed it and when i didnt drive it for a while. you may just need a new battery. Did the guy leave it sitting for a while before he sold it to you? This also happened to me when someone messed with my SAFC. You should take it to a shop that knows how to tune fuel trims and have them look at it. As always start with the cheapest thing and work to the more expensive possible problems. I dont know what fixed my problem, retuning the SAFC or just continuing to drive it. Maybe just do some basic maintanence that you should do anyways and see how it goes from there. Fixing boost leaks and recircing you BOV will make it run better no matter if thats the problem or not. I hate to see this happen cause there are just so many things that could be wrong but with a little luck you will be able to get it fixed cheap. My car is so messed up from the previous owner that im just swapping the engine and starting over. Good luck.

 

[spawn87]

it could be that your alternator is starting to go out i had a problem like that my volts would drop when i idle and go back to 13.5 when i reved up...then it went out so i got a new alt and its fine now.

 

[hiimnotcool]

the SAFC says my volts are at 13.9-14.2 at idle. I'm not sure what a good idle point for this car is, but it idles somewhere around 1100. I'm gonna do the basic checks on it today and try to get it figured out. Thans so much for the responses..I can tell this community will become one of my good friends.

 

[knochgoon24]

Try to find some in your area that knows DSMs. Get them to do a look over. They could find some problems in 5 min that you wouldn't find for months.

 

[skeeter4200]

take it to PINA and have him look at he is pretty good with dsm's