I'd be very grateful if someone could suggest a solution to my stalling problem. The problem is chronic stalling even when driving at highway speeds. The car is a 1995 Ford Probe (Mazda hybrid). It has had a recent full tuneup, alternator belt, gasket valve, distributor coil, battery boost, and they tell me the engine wires are not corroded. The battery is only 2 years old. Two different service stations spent lots of time on it and couldn't find the problem.
The computer codes are gibberish, I guess because the car is old. The check engine light can't be coded because it is never on while the car is idling.
SYMPTOMS:
- The problem usually starts after 30-40 minutes of normal driving.
- The first sign is that it starts choking up, but will still run after letting up on the gas. However, once that begins it won't be long before the car starts stalling, and the stalling will become more and more frequent until the car won't even restart.
- It happened this morning although the weather was warm and dry.
- On Monday it wouldn't restart at all. The shop said that no electricity was reaching the spark plugs. They tried all day and couldn't find out why the electricity was not reaching the spark plugs. The next day the electricity was back.
- There is a delay between electricity sufficient to start the lights & radio and electricity sufficient to start the engine & blower. The engine will not start no matter how many times you turn the ignition unless the blower is ready to blow. Over the past weeks, when this problem was getting worse and worse, the gap between the two stages of electricity has gotten longer and longer -- from a few seconds to minutes, sometimes many minutes, and on Monday it took a day. Now the first thing I do, before trying the engine, is to check the blower. When the blower finally blows, I turn it off and the engine starts.
- The battery doesn't seem to get more charged by long drives as it should. Just the opposite, it's getting drained. After driving close to 200 miles on Saturday & Sunday, by Monday the battery was very low (so they tell me). It's as if something is draining the electricity.
Any ideas? I'm desperate!!!!!