Stalling/Dies When Driving

mountaineer76

Hello -

I own a 94' Dodge Dakota V6 Magnum Automatic 3.9 Club Cab.

About a month ago, it started stalling at idle and also if I put it in reverse. I replaced the IAC and it fixed that issue. I drove it about a week, roughly 300 miles or so, without any problem.

Last Sunday, I left the house and after running great for about 30 minutes, it felt like it was stalling, losing power, etc...I was going about 50 MPH. It eventually died a few seconds later.

I coasted to a stop and tried to start it. It turned over for about 3-4 tries then started right up.

I drove it another (5) minutes and it did the same thing. Regardless of how I tried to keep the RPM's high or if I was on highway or in town, it continued this for about (10) minutes as I was now trying to get it home.

Then, it ran fine for about a (10) minute stretch before dying one more time about a mile from home.

Each time, it took about 1-2 minutes of turning over before it would catch and start right up.

Since then, I have not driven it, but I have gone out and started it and it will idle in Park as long as it wants.

I've seen many forums with similar issues and would like to know if I should go the route of the PCM first or possibly the O2 Sensor or TPS/EGR?

I don't feel it is a Fuel issue. Perhaps the distributor?

There is no CEL on right now, but it has come on and off intermittently.

One other question, when I replaced the IAC, I didn't spray anything with Carb cleaner. Is there a chance if I went back in and did that, it might remedy it?

Thank you in advance! It has 225,000 miles on it.

thecardoc3

How many PCM's or EGRs would you have to replace to the fix a bad ignition switch if that is what is wrong with your Dakota? That's the problem with just trying to read what was wrong with someone else's car and guessing that might be what is going on with yours. You could of course guess right, but the odds are actually against you. Every car should be diagnosed by what it is doing and then be repaired accordingly. If it happens to be similar to another set of vehicles that's fine but there is no way to know that without testing correctly and proving it first.

So when it shuts down, what are you losing? Spark? Fuel? (injection or pressure) Both? Will the PCM communicate to a scan tool while the stall/no-start is occurring? What code(s) are in the computer's memory?

mountaineer76

No codes. I took it by O'reilly and nothing generated, plus the CEL wasn't/hasn't been on. Everything in the fuel realm is fine. I replaced the pick-up coil and it didn't have an effect. I'm 99% sure it is electrical.

Today, it started twice and after a couple minutes of idling, each time, it just dies, as if the key is turned off. No sputtering or gradual shut down....it is instant.

After the second time, it wouldn't start back up.

thecardoc3

That's the moment the real diagnostics need to start. Was anything else still working at that time? Did anything else fail to work while the car was dead? In the shop, one of the checks would be to see if any modules were still communicating on the data bus. With the PCM dead I would be checking to see if the 5v reference power to sensors under the hood was still present. The next step would be dependent on what was discovered with these first checks.

FWIW I've had failures in the wiring harness drop power to the ignition switch, failures in the under hood fuse block, ignition switch failures, and in fact too many different things to list. That's why every car has to be tested in order to prove what is wrong with it when the problem occurs and what was wrong with a different car is meaningless until this car's fault is found. Only then should notes be compared....