excaliber

Things known to be wrong:
serpentine belt
02 sensor 1st bank, 1st sensor
lower control arm passenger side worn
power steering fluid slight leak
Alternator charging at 10, should be 14 (per crooked Firestone reps)

its a 97 sc400, 182k miles. First time ive been left stranded this morning. Been having small issues, would every now and then on 1st start up of the day, power up, then rpms flutter down and the motor chokes, start it right back up, might do it two or three times but runsfine after for that day and days after. Very intermittent. Today, after driving for a while (30 degree day) the car turned off and every time i tried to start it back up it stayed on, rpms went up then down, threatening to croke, but if brake pressed or any other gear but park, the car turned off.
Towed to firestone unfortunately, said i need alternator, tensioner pulley, mysterious oil leak "
everywhere"
Paid 160 for serpentine belt installed and for them to try and clean up the alternator a bit. Drove home without issue, felt better but feel like its still brewing.
Anyone with similar issues, similar remedies, ideas for things to check.
I am broke until friday so thats the issue otherwise id drive over to lexus tomorrow.
Theyve corrected the issue previously with a throttle body cleaning and then again with just cleaning the alternator and quoting me 900 for a fix, followed by me driving away very quickly.

Been a bad day so excuse my writing and franticness, i had a throw back to the days of my first car, a 93 ford probe gt that is the original cause of my car stress and aggravation level of containment being low.

Thanks for any ideas or help guys

Be good

Steve

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

I never quite figured out why mine did that occasionally, but it hopefully went away through some mysterious combination of things I did... Two thing to try when it happens again: 1) open the gas cap to relieve pressure, 2) jumper the fuel pump ecu bypass (Fp and +b) in the diagnostics box. I'm not 100% sure by any means, but it seemed like it was related to fuel delivery issues.

excaliber

thats a good idea but out of my expertise for sure. The probe not only scarred me for life, now that I have a car that is great in most ways reliability wise i try never to touch it myself. Leave it to the experts. Need to get more involved. Paid 75 for tow and 160 for belt going in so cant repeat that again.

BiGEZ

iTrader: (24)

As mentioned above do the fuel pump ecu bypass. I think it could be your alternator, I had the same with my 96 SC300 alt failed on me and got all other kinds of issues. Replaced it with a new one and all is good.
Keep troubleshooting though it could be something simple. Vac lines leak or something similar. GL hope you get it ironed out soon.

excaliber

i WAS THINKING IT MIGHT BE A THROTTLE BODY CLEANING AND iacv cLEANING ISSUE. sEEMS TO HAVE FIXED THE PROBLEM BEFORE AND ALL THE SYMPTOMS DESCRIBED ON THE FORUMS SEEM like this might be the answer. Sorry for caps, just realized and am out the door
Another question equally important and been meaning to ask, when started usuaully when running well, my cars rpm will be at around 1250, when warm and also whenever i put on a/c itll be at around 750, when the car is driving along at stop lights, it idles at 200-250rpms, very quiet which I love but is that normal?? The alternators powering at 10 volts when it should be 14 per liarstone. What do u think? its a cs4 182k miles