I have a 1997 2.4L Dodge Stratus 100,000+ miles No MILs

Recently it has had some odd symptoms.

Symptom 1:
When I would be in line at a stoplight moving forward and stoping often, when i released the gas pedal and moved my foot over to the break, just as my foot released the gas it would almost die (sometimes it did die because I could not hit the gas because there were cars in front of me). If I was able to make it to the break pedal, it also would not die. This happened at one particular stopsign for about two weeks. Always around 6 pm during the summer in Texas.

I replaced the spark plugs thinking this would fix it. (Had a prob misfiring before that exhibited at this stop sign, and it was because a spark plug was fouled/full of oil from an oil change by wal-mart).

New problem

During this time I was having an oil leak from my rear-crankcase seal priced (too expensive to fix), the mechanic asked if I had my PCV looked at. I said no, and he went to check it, and broke the hose on it, so he replaced it free of charge (really nice because the hose was probably bad anyway)

Symptom 2:
I will be driving along with my cruise control on, no hills no nothing, different times of day different temperatures, and different weather conditions don't matter, and all of a sudden it will cutt off and not be able to re-engage unless I turn the car off and back on.
???

Symptom 3:
First symptom has stopped for the most part, but now I have really odd idling. I start the car, which normally idles just around 800, and occasionally it will be idling at 1200 in park, and when I put it in drive or reverse it drops to under 800 almost dying until I hit the gas. One particular day in the late morning in summer in Texas it almost died at every stoplight. If however I turn the car off and restart it, it resumes it's normal operation.

At first I didn't think this problem related to the new PCV, but maybe another vaccuum. Checked all I could find, but when it exhibited the high idling, and we removed the PCV, we noticed it go back to normal. $3 later and a new PCV everything seemed to work great.

...for a week (even the cruise control problem was fixed, and my car seemed to glide instead of feeling like I was pushing it).

Now I have the same cruise control/idle problem again =(

ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED

 

Anybody think this could be the IAC?

 

I was having erratic idle on my stratus. I had replaced the TPS because it did have a TPS code. And the IAC was probably going to be my next step, but the PCV ended up being my problem.

If you need to manually mess with the idle to bring it up, you can turn the screw on the throttle body to push the throttle open a little bit more.

 

I thought it was the PCV as well, it was the only component I had replaced before the idling symptoms. However, I get no codes =/ I guess i will have to detach the electrical connectors from the IAC Motor and TPS and go test them both. Other than the PCV, where exactly are any of the vaccuum lines?

 

what is the pcv and the iac? what would I need to replace these things. my sister's car does the same thing.

 

Hey, check your EGR valve. I had the same symptoms at stops signs and erratic idle and this is what it was. Most likely the solenoid from the EGR is stuck open.

 

Checked the EGR, it's working, thanks for the suggestion. IAC is Idle Air control (around 30 bucks at autozone) After I put this on it seemed to help, I got 30 more miles to the tank, however the other problems still continued. As everyone suggested, it seemed to be a vaccuum leak, so I tracked it down to the two elbow pieces, one that connects the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation valve) to the headers, and one that connected into the throttle body. 2 bucks each, and it seems to have fixed my problem.

I didn't replace the throttle position sensor just because it was more expensive. However if you do decide to replace the IAC, I would also recomend getting a throttle body gasket, mine was in pretty bad shape and I didn't get a chance to fix that yet.