Sputters in drive at stop signs

TMORRIS926

MEMBER
2004 MAZDA 6
3.0L
V6
2WD
AUTOMATIC
205,460 MILES

It hesitates when you start it and you drive it accelerates fine, but then when you go to stop at a stop sign it sputters and starts jumping, you put it in neutral and it idles fine for the back in drive, and it starts sputtering until you take off.

Tuesday, May 31st, 2022 AT 6:54 PM

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

There could be a couple of issues that cause this, but I would suggest we start with the basics.

First is we need to check fuel pressure and find out what this is when this is happening.

Here are a couple of guides that will help with this:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/vibration-noise

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-check-fuel-system-pressure-and-regulator

I suspect that will prove okay since this smooths out when in neutral but I had a vehicle a while ago that would do the same thing and the fuel pressure was weak and it would keep it running when there was no load on the engine so we should check it.

Next, we need to suspect we have a possible engine mount issue.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/replace-motor-mounts

The only thing you are doing when you put it in neutral vs drive is removing the load from the torque converter/transmission. So, if we have an issue with the converter being out of balance then that will cause this vibration.

Does the engine ever stall?

Let's start with this and go from there. Thanks