What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks

My MK IV Volkswagen Golf stalls and engine cuts out - what's causing it?

My car can suddenly stall and engine cut out after driving half a mile.

Try to restart it and the revs will not stay up to idle speed and the engine cuts again. If I rev the engine for a while and then the revs smooth out a bit and it will then run. When the engine is in idle the needle of the rev counter oscillates a bit.

What's wrong?

Asked on 31 October 2016 by Monica Mawson

Answered by Alan Ross
Well firstly check all air/vacuum pipes for splits/loose connections.

If all okay then it may be prudent at this stage to carry out a diagnostic check, reason for this is that the problem could be one of the many sensors fitted has a fault.

You should then get a fault code ( ie P ---- 4 numbers) which can then be related to the actual problem.

Things it could be are:

MAP sensor
MAF sensor
ECT sensor
APP sensor
EVAP canister purge valve
HO2S Sensor ( Lambada sensor)
CKP Sensor

Hence the reason for the diagnostic in the first instance.
Similar questions
My Golf (100,000 miles) goes through stages of just cutting out as I stop (at lights, roundabouts, parking, etc). It happily restarts. This happens about 40% of the time - when engine is warm and once...
We have a 2006 2.0-litre petrol automatic Peugeot 807. It runs well and when plugged into a diagnostic machine there are no faults or issues. However, on occasion the throttle is unresponsive from standing...
I have a repetitive problem with my 2002 Ford Mondeo 2.0 TDCi - the car stalls in cold weather It only happens for the first few hundred metres and only when I stop accelerating and it drops to idle...