Hello,

I have a 2014 Ford Fiesta SE with 70k miles on it. Aside from the weird transmission recall things have been pretty good with the car. However, this issue started back in February. I was idling in a parking lot when my RPM's jumped about 500 and then my engine just died. Lights were all on and no dimming. I tried starting the car and it would run the ignition about 5 seconds and then quit. I sat and sat and about 45min later i tried it one more time before calling a tow truck and it started. Jump to almost 3 months later and it happened again, this time idling in my driveway. I waited about the same amount of time and it started up just fine. This time it ran for about a month until it happened again, but I was now coming to a stop light and it died in the middle of the road. and finally it happened again (twice in the same day) where i said screw it i need to get it towed whether it starts or not.

I took it to my father in laws who has multiple diag devices and it is not giving out any error codes and it is not giving me a check engine light. I am wondering what on earth the problem could be? I was doing some research and people have some symptoms like mine but i hadn't seen any that matched mine exactly. The car runs great once it starts up again.

Some conditions seem to have been days where i've been driving and it's in the mid 50's...back in the middle of winter I'm not sure if the cold was keeping the car from dying more than it should have. The engine itself isn't overheating. Also the last two times it stalled out WHILE driving i was going under 20mph.


Any ideas? Without a check engine light to point me in the right direction i don't want to spend hundreds of dollars just guessing on this. Any help is appreciated.

thanks

 

A few things come into the picture.
Some conditions do not throw a code until the condition takes place more than once.
Another consideration, what ever might be the cause may be in the vehicle computer memory that gets erased when the ign is shut off.
Better still if a component drops or sends a lower than normal signal the monitoring section shuts down.
That is why a servicing facility or individual is recommended to check for "Technical Service Bulletins" regarding the problem hoping someone has come across the problem and found the cause and revealed the "fix".
This is only my opinion, but a questionable crank sensor or connection in that circuit can be low enough or momentarily drop out and result could be a stall due to loss of signal.
Stalls can involve many causes and because they can be intermittent makes them really difficult to pin down. Patience is one of the best tools as long as doesn't take too long, or cause an accident.

 

My next course of action is to use this bluetooth diagnostic tool and hope that I can get the car to fail over the weekend when it's warmer. So it would be good to make sure if the car does stall while idling'driving i stop the car and not touch or turn off the ignition to see if it can find a problem? I thought that even if the light goes off it would tell in the diag device's code history. In regards to your crank sensor that's also called the camshaft position sensor correct? I'm not too knowledgeable on cars. I did see quite a few people with sudden stalling/eventually starting back up say it was their camshaft position sensor. But like i was saying those are 70 dollars a piece, I need two, and I can't return them. That's a hell of a risk when I have nothing else to go off of.

 

They are two separate sensors.
Once the engine is running some engines will continue running with a cam sensor problem , but if shut down will not restart.
If you are planning on replacing anything without confirming your suspicions it's a crapshoot either way.

There are monitors that can be connected to your vehicle that will display data and retain the last few minutes of driving so they might be examined for unusual readings or info and the "Freeze Frame" function on a good scan too would be helpful here.

 

does the car always starting back up after a certain amount of time throw off any flags that you've heard of? I'd almost rather it not restart at this point. It might be easier to find out what to do.

 

I can only cite an example I have seen.
The vehicle stopped dead on the road and would not restart right away.
Waited about 10 minutes and it started. The coil in the crank sensor opened when it got hot . I confirmed the sensor by running it until it stalled then shot water on the crank sensor to cool it and it started . Did this at least 2 times and after the crank sensor was replaced the problem was gone also.
It threw no codes by the way.
This is only one possibility, but there could be others.

The ideal way to determine the cause is to hook up a scan tool and observe the operating conditions at the time it quits . Electrical and fuel systems can be verified that way.

 

Just took an 8minute round trip to get lunch when i left work. Sat in the parking lot idling for about 2 minutes. Car died. No error codes with diagnostic device connected. only light that came on when it shut off was battery, which i don't know is normal or not. Keys were still in same position after the car died so i didn't touch anything for a minute. It's only 55 degrees out.

at a loss.

 

When it quits and you attempt to restart does the check engine lite stay on while cranking or does it go out?

 

just tried starting it again, didn't start and the engine light goes off while it's attempting to start

 

Now we need to determine if we have fuel and spark.
To check for spark can remove one of the coiis and connect it to a spark plug with larger than normal gap while metal part of plug is contacting engine metal and engine cranking. If spark is present , you will see it jump the gap on the plug. If no spark,we go from there.
A better way to check for fuel is to spray a shot or two of carb/choke cleaner into the air filter intake and crank the engine . If starts for only 2 or 3 seconds , we have a fuel supply problem.
How involved you want to get here is up to you, but this is one way to determine which one it is.