car is randomly shutting off

[LYDS]

Ok so now I am back again with another question. My car recently starting shutting off randomly while driving. The first time I was at a red light and the car started to putter and then shut off. I figured I was running out of gas so I rushed to the gas station and then went home with no further issues(which by the way I was slightly over the empty line on the gas gauge).

Then a few days later I was driving and just turned the corner and the car shut off while in drive. I unplugged the MP3 player and restarted the car no further problems. Again today I started the car put in reverse and it shut off, I restarted drove down the street and it shut off again, restarted again and it was fine. It is starting to shut off more frequently now but restarts no problem but does randomly putter when first starting the car.

Please advise of any thoughts and ideas that may help me to resolve this issue. Everyone has been so helpful over the past year and I freakin love this site.

thanks Lyds

[OwnerCS]

To me it sounds like a bad Mass Air Flow (MAF) sensor. My I30 had the symptoms you describe as it would sometimes die at stoplights or when I would let off of the accelerator to turn a corner. It turned out to be a problem with the MAF. I understand when a MAF starts to go out it can have intermittent failures without throwing a code.

[LYDS]

MAF sensor was replaced twice already in the last year. The car shuts off but when I unplug my phone from the cigarette lighter the car turns on and when stay unplugged the car will not shut off. Any further suggestions? Could there be a link to the cigarette lighter and the car loosing power and shutting off?

[2brokey]

Wow, that sounds extra special... try a different charger or item in the cigarette lighter. Maybe your phone/charger combo is causing enough ground-loop interference to annoy your ECU? I've never heard of it, but it could be possible... I had a problem with the car shutting off due to bad injector wiring, but you seem to have isolated your issue to this charger.

[LYDS]

awesome thanks for the advise