sounds more like the cps to me. my brothers cherokee had a bad cps when he got it and we could get it to start very randomly then it would die immidiatly and not start for hours, days, weeks. i really dont think its the iac but mine as well clean it for future and since its basically free to do

 

Will do. Thanks. Looks like i have plans for this saturday.

 

It might be the CPS but i looked under the front passenger wheel and i didnt see any wires that would get crimped when turning the wheel.

mine will start up every time and run and idle and once i get it in drive, it never stalls.

It only stalls when idling doing something. I get it to happen most of the time when putting it in gear, but i have gotten it to happen when turning the wheel left/right

 

while turning is semi-normal, as it puts a tremendous strain on the motor, especially is your power steering needs servicing.

 

So yesterday, i took the throttle body off, took all the components off it and used an entire can of throttle body cleaner between it and the IAC valve. It was all pretty dirty, the IAC valve in particular was black and crusted over. Its now a dull brass yellow/green color.

The vehicle definitely idles better now. And the issue with the RPM's fluttering excessively when turning the wheel seems resolved, it still moves the RPM meter a little bit but nothing drastic.

However, it still will stall sometimes when putting it in gear.

Since i cleaned the throttle body and IAC valve i can now give it some gas and prevent it from stalling, previously even if i would give it some gas it would still stall.

I recently bough this truck and this is my first vehicle doing my own repairs. I will greatly appreciate any advice.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing next:

1. Replace the Crank Shaft sensor since everyone seems to think its the most common cause
2. new spark plugs -- recent purchase not sure when they were changed by the previous owner. However i dont think the spark plugs are bad because once the vehicle is in drive it doesnt studder, its only when first going into gear
3. maybe replace the IAC valve since things did seem to improve with the cleaning maybe its going bad and replacing it will solve the problem

not sure what else to look for

 

Well yesterday i got around to changing the crank shaft sensor.

the new one was a cheap part from advance auto and broke a bottom piece off down in the crank shaft.

good on them that they did take the bad part back.

However now i have a piece of plastic down in there, unable to be seen.

I put the old sensor back on and was able to start the truck and move it out of the way.

However i do wonder about the little bit of plastic that is down in there. I think the best thing to do is just leave it in there and hope it melts, or falls out somehow. It didn't effect putting the old one back on. It is probably about a quarter sized amount of plastic though i doubt it is in one piece.

Heres to hoping my original problem will be resolved with a new sensor from napa.

 

Well, i replaced the crankshaft sensor with one from napa yesterday and it fit like a charm.

I dont think the little bit of plastic from the other one will hurt anything.

However it will still stall when first going into drive "sometimes"

 

This is all happening at engine idle, right? I would suspect a bad MAP sensor, it can play hell in a number of subtle ways.

Think about it, the manifold absolute pressure sensor is giving low pressure readings, the computer reads that and says 'give less fuel' and that causes the stall. Could be it's running lean at above idle, too, but that won't shut down the engine.

Just a thought. . .

 

Ideling is not a problem, it'll idle till it runs out of gas.

It stalls when you first put it into D or R.

Once it is in D or R successfully without stalling, you can drive the vehicle for miles without issue, including stopping at red lights, and interstate speeds.

I would say it stalls out about 30% of the time, when first going into D or R.

If i catch it stalling i can give it some gas and usually it'll straighten itself out, however.

The idling, stearing problems were resolved by cleaning the throttle body and iac valve.

I am not getting a check engine light.

 

Well i found the problem.

I noticed it was running low on transmission fluid so i added some.

the transfer case started showing a leak

the local repair guy said it would be 2,000 to fix

so this truck is headed for scrap.