I've been coming across pseudo-similar threads, but the more recent aren't exactly my situation. I decided to start a new thread instead of posting in the one about the idling w/ the AC, etc.

I just acquired the 06 mazda3 in March of 07. It's now got about 30,000 miles on it. About a week to 2 weeks ago I noticed it loses all 'kick' when starting from a stop, i.e. traffic, stoplight. My friend, who is big into cars, was like whoa your cars idling, the other day. I never noticed because my prior car, a 7 yr old Dodge Neon, did it worse that I didn't even feel it happening.

Well, I used fuel injection cleaner and am planning an oil change, but then I started seeing alot of similar problems with the 3s. Today, sitting in traffic, my car just completely stalled - all the lights came on and it stopped. Of course it started right back up again, but I won't run the AC now because that's when it idles most often, moving w/ AC OR sitting with/or/without...

Anyway, I can't seem to see anything on Mazda's website about this... Can someone fill me in on this situation and what the problem is/what I need to do? When I take it to a dealer, I want to be well-informed; as I'm a 23 yr old female and don't want to walk out with the problem not fixed but $300 spent on something unrelated.

THANKS! []

 

if you go long stretches of time without changing the air filter, the MAF sensor might be dirty. you could clean it up by pulling it off and spraying MAF cleaner in it. you don't have to be any kind of mechanic to do this at all. the MAF sensor comes off with aflat headscrewdriver. it is the little box after the air filter. it should have a little blue dot on the top of it. you can buy the cleaner at the auto parts store.

 

When say the car's idleing what are you talking about? All cars idle.... if they didn't then they'd just turn off..... which ironically is what your's is doing. Is it idleing high, low, etc.? Is your car a MTX or ATX? If it's an auto then I would suggest you see if there's a reflash available for your ECU. It's also possible that it was unhappy with what it learned from it's previous driver. If you disconnect the battery and then hold the brakes to drain the capacitor charge (or wait 10-15 minutes) then the ECU will reset itself and will relearn your driving style. If it's still doing stuff like that then I'd head to the dealer.

I agree that you should check your filters, and check the MAF sensor as well.

 

well it was a rental before i bought it, so that makes sense. it is an atx, that err yknow electronic manual option. as like stupid as this may sound, after i drove it in manual during a snow storm, i swore it didn't drive the same anymore in automatic. (we had a snowstorm like the 2nd or 3rd week of march, fyi.)

when i say idling i mean, enough to shake the car. it usually happens when i'm still i.e. drive thru lane, red light
then, yes, the other day it actually turned off.
and btw, today i got in and noticed the clock said 8:18am when it was in fact 8:43am. ? ugh.

 

my old 626 wuld do that, it would have small seizure in the drive thu and would occasionally turn off while im driving or at a stop light. turned out that i was leaking oil in the cylinders and it got all over the spark plugs. i had to switch them out every month. so that might be the problem. take a look at your spark plugs.