need help with a car problem.

[nunyadam]

My nephew has a chevy corsica 1990 v-6 3.1( i think)
It has around 130,000 miles on it.
the problem is it stalls on him. mostly at or approaching a stop.
it idles smoothly.
anybody have an idea where i should be looking?

[ArcticFox]

Alright, take my advice with a bag of salt because I couldn't know less about cars. But my logic seems to point to something spark-plug related. I will be SOOO elated if that is what it turns out to be....

Anyways, I also had an AMC Eagle that stalls, a tonne, and whenever you come to a stop you better slam it into neutral otherwise it will just die on you. And when you start going again, slam it from neutral into drive and floor it otherwise it will stall again.

The problem with the spark plug idea is you say it idles just fine, but you never know. Pop the hood, take the plugs out and check them/clean them, replace them and see what happens.

Sounds like a vacuum problem. Check all the vacuum lines.

If that's not it, check the air filter. Check the fuel filter (if there's an under hood one). Could also be the fuel pump itself. In my limited experience, when cars stall like that, it's typically a vacuum problem, or the air filter is so filthy the car can't breathe. But like I said, limited experience.

[whitebeard21]

I suspect dirty throtle return linkage, clean with a can of carb. cleaner also make sure pcv valve isn't stuck and causing the inside of the throtle bore to be gunked up. Check the air filter as sugested, fuel is more likely to be a wide open throtle problem than idle. Also plugs more likely to break down at high rpm because of higher cylinder pressures at higher rpm. Higher rpm has less time for blowby resulting in higher cylinder pressures.

[MTAtech]

Two things cause stalls at low RPM (idle). Not enough air or not enough fuel. A number of things can cause those- as stated above.

[Epidemic]

I go with vacuum problem related to the power assist in the breaks. I forget the mechanics of it but basically you take engine vacuum to assist pulling a diaphram to assist the mechanical force you apply to the breaks. If there is a hole in the diaphram it could smother your engine while breaking.

I believe that you can test this by pumping your breaks at a stop. if it stalls then that is likely related to your problem.

This same thing happened to my 1992 Firebird with the same 3.1L v6 engine. After a few hours of troubleshooting and cursing, I was severely frustrated. I could find no ignition or fuel delivery problems.

I gave up and came back the next day to try again. After driving it around the neighborhood, I noticed a slight (barely detectable) bounce in my voltage meter when stopping. It should not have been enough to matter, but I was growing impatient at this point.

I placed the battery under severe loading and finally found out it had a dying cell. For the instant second my RPMs dropped below 700 (car was idled low) while stopping, the ignition system was not receiving enough voltage, thus dropping out and stalling the car. The engine will fall under the set idle point for a split second while stopping. Otherwise, the car idled perfectly fine when setting.

I replaced the battery and re-idled my car to GM specs. Everything has been working great for the past six months.

Robert Richmond

[whitebeard21]

Wear safety glasses any time you work on a battery.
Gm will cut out at low batt. voltage I forgot that. Digital meter may not react fast enough to detect it, use a cheap analog. Dash meters are notoriously innacurate.

[Sweeper]

TCC solonoid... Sounds like to me. You can first try unplugging it and see if that corrects the problem. If so, it's in the Transmission. Tough job.

Also, could be the Idle Air Control.

If you are lucky a simple tune up might solve it.

[RedFury]

Does it do it all the time?

Here's one way to determine if you have an electrical issue. All cars run on default settings ( cold ) until the engine warms up, then all sensors, etc come online.

I'm not familiar with the Corsica, but if it ( and it most likely does ) has a Mass Airflow Sensor, try disconnecting it with the engine off, but warm, restart and try to recreate the conditions when it stalls. A bad MAF sensor will cause stalls, but run fine at idle, maybe give you a little bit of a lope. Most likely this isn't the cause, but you can at least rule it out easily enough.

What happens when you pull the connector off of the MAF sensor ( it's directly behind the aircleaner ), it goes to default mode..basically bypasses the signal it would have normally get.

Could be a vacuum problem, RobRich has a good point too..how old is the battery... any Batteries Plus ( if you have one ) will test the battery for free, as a few other shops may charge you a couple of bucks...it's worth a check.

Give the easy stuff a shot, and if something is still wrong, tell us what you did, and any other relevant data....