Hi All, I need some help.

My car (1998 V70 AWD LPT, 222k miles) has stalled on me a couple of times and I don't know what the problem could be.

I had a problem with the car stalling a couple of years ago but it seemed a bit different. Back then, the car always started right back up again. This time it seems pretty reluctant to start. Once I was actually not really able to get it to start again. I was close to home, and walked home, and then came back about an hour later and it started and ran fine.

Also, last time it would stall when coming to a stop. This time it stalls when pulling away from a stopped position. It really seems like a different thing. I think when the car was doing this before it was a vac leak. The PCV system was in really bad shape. Since I changed the PCV stuff and replaced all the vac lines I never had another problem until this week.

I recently did a vac leak test with pressurized air (as described in VADIS) and found no leaks at all.

According to my scanner, everything seems fine with the O2 sensors. Switching at a decent rate and reaching good max and min values.

I of course suspected the fuel pump relay, but then realized that the fuel pump relay was replaced with a brand new OEM relay the day I bought it from the previous owner. I ordered a new one from FCP anyway and it came in the mail today, so I will install it tonight. I'll monitor to see if it makes a difference, but it went 10 days running fine between stalls, so I don't really know when I'll be able to conclude that this was the fix or not.

The first day it stalled, I found that I had assembled the airbox and primary ignition wire sloppily. For whatever reason, I didn't bother to thread the ignition wire under the MAF but instead laid it on top. I suspected that this was a good candidate for electrical interference. I actually thought this /was/ the problem, because since I rerouted that ignition wire it didn't stall again for 10 days... but then stalled again today so that obviously wasn't the problem (though I'm glad I routed it properly).

I tested my MAF by back-probing with my multi-meter and it really seemed fine according to the test procedure I found. I will buy some cleaner today though and see if cleaning makes a difference...


I really hate chasing things that occur intermittently and infrequently like this.

Any advice is welcomed of course.

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1998 V70 AWD->FWD->AWD Turbo 220k+