I have a 98 XC and I have been having a problem with it stalling. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why it's doing it. It started a couple of months ago when my wife put gas in the car it it ran horribly. Lots of sputtering and missing. The check engine light came on with a code for a misfire in cylinder 3, and a small EVAP system leak (P0303 and P0442). I replaced the plugs and ran some fuel injector cleaner through and everything seemed alright. I reset the check engine light (the old fashioned way, by disconnecting the battery for 10 min), but it came back on a few weeks later. Same misfire error code. In the meantime, my wife (who is the primary driver or the car) was on her way to work on a very bumpy part of road and the car just died. She was able to start it back without any problems, but since then it will die for no apparent reason. Sometimes it will start right back up, and other times it will take a minute. During the times that it takes a while to start, it will fire every once in awhile, and puff out some black smoke. Then it will start up and run fine. I'm reasonably savvy when it comes to cars, but I'm not sure where to start looking. It acts like it's a fuel delivery problem, but it also seems like it could be an ignition problem.

I don't know if it's related, but the ABS module is broken right now (light comes on and off) and I haven't sent it to V. Rocha yet to be fixed. I can't see how it would affect this problem, but you never know.