91 Olds Cutlass stalls and stumbles

My Dad has a '91 Cutlass with the 3300 v6. Lately it's been having a problem with shaking/stumbling when decelerating, and stalling when moving in and out of parking spaces, etc.

In the last month or two, it's had similar problems, but they turned out to be (or so it seemed) a bad sending unit, which was showing 1/2 tank of gas even though the tank was near empty. The sending unit was replaced and things seemed back to normal.

Now he's been getting these symptoms. Usually what happens is it'll start to shudder when coming to a stop, and then stall once the car gets stopped. It will restart, but as soon as you put it into gear, it will die unless you can get right on the gas to keep it going. Often it will be reluctant to accelerate at all before or after this happens.

Any ideas what might be happening here? I haven't checked the ECU for codes yet, and he's taken it to a shop to be checked out since he needs the car for a trip in the next couple of days.

In writing this, I had the thought that maybe by running the tank dry a couple of times, he's picked up a bunch of debris and clogged the fuel filter. He has a new used tank though, and I think a new filter was installed at that time, so this seems a bit unlikely. If I had to guess though, I would say the problem is lack of fuel due to one thing or another.

Any suggestions would be great, thanks in advance!

Reply to
John Mason
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Sounds like a whole bunch of problems. The dying when coming to a stop AFTER going faster than

43 mph is probably the TCC staying engaged. Stalling when moving in and out of parking spaces is not TCC and may be TPS, MAT, or IAC related. Often, there will be no codes set.
Reply to
« Paul »

The gas gauge sending unit is separate from the fuel pump in that vehicle. All it does is detect fuel level.

Reply to
« Paul »

Well this probably isn't worth mentioning, but the IAC is only a few years old. I suppose it could be some other part of the engine management hardware, but it seems too much like the same symptoms he had before the sending unit was replaced to me... If they manage to nail it down at the shop, I'll post the findings, but don't let that stop anyone from throwing their ideas out there :)

Reply to
JM

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