Car shuddered/sputtered
 

I don't know if this belongs here or in the new service section, but oh well.

Let me start at the beginning (long story I'll try to keep short).

Last year (spring time) I started the car up and was about 2 minutes into my commute. I was at a red light and when it turned green I let off the brake and it stalled (I have an AUTO). I put it in neutral and it started right up. Then a couple of minutes later I was on the beltway and the car shuddered and "seemed" to have lost power, but I didn't. The check engine light came on and I got off the beltway and had it towed to the dealership. They said that a sensor went up and replaced it. Then around fall last year the car was sputtering like it was going to stall again, about a minute or two into my commute. I didn't want to take a chance on the beltway and had them tow it again. This time it was my spark plug(s) was bad. The car had less then 25K on it at that point. Well yesterday I started the car up and I was just sitting there for about 45 seconds when the car started to shudder like it was going to stall. It seemes as if it wasn't getting enough fuel. I put it in revearse still shuddred. Then I put it in neutral, no shuddering there. Then I went into drive and it started shuddering again. It started right up today and I had no problems. I dropped it off at the shop because it's due for an oil change.

Does anyone have a clue as to what could be wrong? Is the dealership jerking me around? I told them to contact me before they do any work on it.

did they tell you what the CEL code was? i would bring it to multiple dealers (if they are in your area) and see if they can't give you a straight answer. you could bring it to Pep Boys next time you get the CEL, have them pull the code, and bring it to the dealer telling them what happened. give 'em the whole story of how it was so much hassle to have it stalled in traffic and that you were waiting at Pep Boys for hours and that if they had fixed it the first time, you wouldn't have gone through all that.

This shuddering happened on Saturday and hasn't happened since. Is there any way I can get the CEL code myself? There was a "trick" I could do with my Jeep to get codes off the computer of the vehicle w/o going to a dealer or car shop. Most of the times they charge you an arm and a leg to hook it up to a machine that will read the codes.

Could it just be that the sensor did fail and the spark plug went bad? Or do you think that there could be an underlying cause to these problems?

sorry cant help ya there. im not much of a mechanic (if you can call it that). please keep us updated.

It's been fine since it Saturday so I don't what's going on. We'll see if it happens again.