I need a mechanic.

[etherial]

Big, strong hands...
Deep blue eyes that can stare at my parts for hours...
Oh, and it might be nice if he could fix my car. She's grown to HATE city driving to the point of stalling 75% of the time I have to stop.

By the way, I'm not dead.
'Con report to follow.

Comments

...automatic transmission, revisited (or why sven is not just pulling this out of his @$$)

[stillking.livejournal.com]

Have a little more time to spew verbal diarrhea about this problem now that my boss is no longer breathing down my neck...

Most common cause of stalling at a stop: idle too low. This is more likely if your car is old [the automotive internal combustion engine needs to have its idle gradually turned up progressively higher and higher as it ages past 75,000 miles or thereabouts], less likely if you have had it [the car] tuned up recently. As one might intuit, this problem is not serious, and can be corrected with a full tune-up [recommended], or one of your more car-savvy friends coming over with screwdrivers and/or socket wrenches, depending on your make and model [not so recommended]. You say your car stalls about 75% of the time; if it comes "close to stalling" the other 25% (shudders, sputters) but narrowly avoids dying, idle-adjustment/possible replacement of the idle controller are good places to start. Probably an hour or two of labor.

Second most common cause of stalling at a stop: automatic transmission is having difficulty downshifting from a higher [2nd/3rd/4th] gear into the slow/stopped speeds you encounter at a red octagonal sign... now your car is travelling at the lower speed, but couldn't get down into the lower gear, and your car stalls. This can be middling-expensive -- O-rings starting to disintegrate in the transmission column, causing the 'liquid clutch' to slip back and forth differently than it might otherwise, or perhaps a lock-up torque converter which is starting to stick (will correctly lock into place when you accelerate, guaranteeing you optimal gas mileage at high gears/speeds, but is reluctant/slow to 'unlock' when you decelerate), or perhaps the sensor which tells the torque-converter when to "lock up" and when to "release". Probably a few hundred bucks; recommend buying the cheapest rebuilt transmission you can find (not worth getting a new one), or inquire as to a "rebuild kit" if the mechanic thinks he/she can correct your existing tranny.

If the car has a manual transmission or carburetors: All bets are off, the situation is considerably more complicated. ; )

Hope it works out for you -- but defer to the opinion(s) of a certified mechanic [or Justin Brzowski, whichever you can find first] over my amateur Brookline-High-Adult-Ed-Auto-Maintenance education in all cases.

Sven

Re: ...automatic transmission, revisited (or why sven is not just pulling this out of his @$$)

[stillking.livejournal.com]

In the meantime: try shifting into neutral as you come to the stop. If all or most of the stalling-behavior goes away, problem is unquestionably the transmission (either O-rings and/or lockup torque-converter as I suggested previously, or some other transmission-related component I haven't considered yet).

All the in-and-out-of-neutral shifting will drive your transmission into an early grave over the course of weeks/months of repetition, but I got another couple of seasons out of my Buick Regal using this method before the column dropped entirely.

Sven (I'll shut up now, I promise)

Tune Up

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Definitely putting her in for one of those.
I have absolutely no idea why we only changed the oil before driving to Michigan and back.
1985 Marquis with only 45k on it, just FYI. Thought about the gear problem you mentioned. She stalls when I'm switching between Drive and Reverse, but not when coming to a complete stop from 65. When I can solidly stop, it's usually okay. Idling drives her up the wall. Switching to Neutral only helps because it means I don't have to change gears *after* she stalls. I have no objections to an hour or two of labor, but the other half of the reason I posted is who? No one in my family knows a professional mechanic, and the shop in Michigan couldn't hook it up to their Diagnostic Computer and gave up. It didn't even stall in Canada, so the guy there couldn't diagnose a problem that didn't seem to exist.