’88 Jetta– Idles funny, revs up, and stalls.

Hi. I’m having problems with my 88 jetta. I noticed over the past few
days that when I start up the car it tends to rev up the rpms much
higher than normal. Usually it hovers around 1000, but now it goes up
to 2500-3000. After running a bit it settles down. Today I was stuck
in a bad traffic jam. I noticed my temp. guage rising as I was stuck
in 1st & 2nd gear for a long time. As the temp. continued to rise my
car started to choke and would stall. Restarting would take a bit.
THis happened 2-3 times and finally I just parked it. I checked my
coolant and it is fine. I also recently put fuel injector cleaner in
my tank. Any thoughts? My car often heats up if stuck in 1st or 2nd
gear, but this is the first it has started to die on me. Please give
advice. Poor college student needing help. Much appreciated.

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On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:30:32 GMT, JosephB <none (AT) 000 (DOT) com> wrote:

Hi. I’m having problems with my 88 jetta. I noticed over the past few
days that when I start up the car it tends to rev up the rpms much
higher than normal. Usually it hovers around 1000, but now it goes up
to 2500-3000. After running a bit it settles down. Today I was stuck
in a bad traffic jam. I noticed my temp. guage rising as I was stuck
in 1st & 2nd gear for a long time. As the temp. continued to rise my
car started to choke and would stall. Restarting would take a bit.
THis happened 2-3 times and finally I just parked it. I checked my
coolant and it is fine. I also recently put fuel injector cleaner in
my tank. Any thoughts? My car often heats up if stuck in 1st or 2nd
gear, but this is the first it has started to die on me. Please give
advice. Poor college student needing help. Much appreciated.

Does the rad. fan kick on when the temp. guage rises?
If your jetta has a/c you can turn that on , that turns on the fan. If
the fan works then it suggests your (rad. fan thermo switch) is not
closing or it's relay is not suppling power to the fan.

If the fan doesn't work a most likely cause is corrosion " IN " the
fans electrical connection at the fan itself. A close visual inspection
would be the place to start .

JosephB wrote:

Hi. I’m having problems with my 88 jetta. I noticed over the past few
days that when I start up the car it tends to rev up the rpms much
higher than normal. Usually it hovers around 1000, but now it goes up
to 2500-3000. After running a bit it settles down. Today I was stuck
in a bad traffic jam. I noticed my temp. guage rising as I was stuck
in 1st & 2nd gear for a long time. As the temp. continued to rise my
car started to choke and would stall. Restarting would take a bit.
THis happened 2-3 times and finally I just parked it. I checked my
coolant and it is fine. I also recently put fuel injector cleaner in
my tank. Any thoughts? My car often heats up if stuck in 1st or 2nd
gear, but this is the first it has started to die on me. Please give
advice. Poor college student needing help. Much appreciated.

I would check that the intake manifold is correctly tightend (not easy...)

Such condition would give erratic idle, towards high rev, more apparent when
stucked in traffic, temperature will rise until complete stop and the
engine and will restart about half an hour later, when cooler...

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:48:10 GMT, samstone (AT) aol (DOT) com wrote:
I meant to suggest , running the cars heater and heater fan at full bore
will cool the engine somewhat.

Hi Samstone and Al. I will def. try the heater thing next time. Now
that you mention it, a friend of mine actually mentioned once that he
thought it was weird that my radiator fan doesn’t come on often. I
will have a look! And also will have a friend look into the manifold
thing as I’m not really that mechanically inclined. Thanks much for
the advice! Now at least I have somewhere to start!

"samstone" wrote:

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:48:10 GMT, samstone (AT) aol (DOT) com wrote:
I meant to suggest , running the cars heater and heater fan
at full bore
will cool the engine somewhat.

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