'00 Intrepid stalling out

Hi -

My wife's 2000 Intrepid 2.7 V-6 has recently developed a stalling-out issue.

At low speed, like in a parking lot, the car will occasionally shut itself
off. Oil light comes on. She puts it into Park, and can start up the
engine fine, although it might run rough for a bit and then it smooths out,
and may be okay for a week or two.

Vehicle has about 117,000 miles. No sludging problems. Recent plug change
and throttle body clean (blew out a lot of carbon, according to my shop).
Wondering what the next step is I should take. The shop will recommend
throwing it on the computer, but it's gonna be hard to diagnose since most
of the time, it runs just dandy.

Anything I can look into in the meantime? Getting rid of the car isn't an
option right now.

Thanks.

 

The oil light coming on is a natural result of the engine stalling -
with the engine not running, you have no oil pressure, so the pressure
sensing switch closes and lights the light. That in itself is not an
indication of anything but the engine not running at that moment.

Things that come to mind:
• Fuel pump starting to get flaky
• Cam or crank position sensor intermittent

I own a 2.7 Concorde (over 230k miles) and a 3.2 Concorde and have been
reading 3 different LH car forums for several years now. Though I have
not had any of the stalling problem you have, I can tell you that the
items I mentioned (fuel pump and engine sensors) are the most frequent
causes of intermittent engine stalling when such problems are brought up
for diagnosis and the poster reports back with what worked to fix it.
If I had to guess, I'd say fuel pump.

The throttle body cleaning was a good try - that can also cause that
type of problem (Idle Air Control) valve can start sticking with a dirty TB.