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Engine died while going 40mph

2K views 5 replies 5 participants last post by  Lingohocken 
#1 ·
So while driving during rush hour my engine just died and I came to a halt in the middle of the road and narrowly escaped being rear-ended. I had to put the truck into park and restart it. The jeep ran really rough for a few seconds after and it hasn't happened since. There was no CEL on after or since this happened. Anyone heard of this happening? I am having a few other issues with this jeep and this was just the icing on the cake.
 
#3 ·
Could have been crud, moisture or an improper ethanol or additive mix in the gasoline. If so, emptying or replacing the gas filter would be a first step. (No idea where it is on the WK2.) Did your engine light go on at all?

We had what a Jeep service manager speculated was a bad tank of gas that caused our Overland's engine light to go on and some brief roughness. The light was reset and all's been well since.

Stations are under enormous competitive pressure to shave every last penny off prices. So you can never tell what some gasoline is like, what with debris in station tanks and delivery trucks. One station near us that we had used was caught pouring water into its tanks, for example. It was shut down by authorities, but after I read about it I found our pickup's gas filter full of water although it hadn't yet impacted operation.
 
#4 ·
My wife's Jeep did that three times last week (2004 JGC).

After first occurrence (on the highway), repair shop inspected and replaced alternator & battery. 2 days later, did it again (busy street).

Third time failure happened while their techie was driving - thankfully.

Turned out to be a faulty crankshaft sensor.

- I am guessing you've probably got some other issue in your WK2, but thought it might be worth throwing this out there. Never heard of the crankshaft sensor issue.

Good luck!
 
#5 ·
this would make sense, since there are no distributors in these vehicles they use the crankshaft position sensor instead and this tells the computer to deliver spark to each coil. if this sensor fails, no spark will be delivered to the coils and the engine shuts down.
 
#6 ·
You're right that crankshaft sensors do go -- I've had it happen, too. But although I'm not all that close to this subject and could well be wrong, from what little I've seen this normally happens after many miles, not with relatively new vehicles.

Too, it would seem that the check engine light would have gone on. His didn't go on and stay on, and possibly didn't even go on briefly.
 
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