While I am driving, my car shuts off. The only way to start it back up is to coast over to the side of the road and put it in park and then restart it. I thought this was a result of the motion sensor spring that was recalled but it must be something different. I never buy my gas at discount stations so it should not be a matter of bad gas. The car is a 2009 and has 48k miles on it, could it be a dirty fuel filter?

 

How long has it been doing this and what are you doing accelerating or coasting? It could be bad gas because the weather is changing right now.

 

It stalls just when I am driving, not during acceleration or deceleration. I bought the car with 34k on it and it has a clean title. It has only happened maybe 4-5 times while I am going about 45mph, but each time it happened when I was in Chicago (not a very good place to stall). The other thing is that it seems like it has lost power. Could it only be firing on 3 cylinders?

 

Do you have a extended warranty? It sounds like you answered your own question and have a bad coil, or spark plug. What mpg are you averaging? With no codes its hard to tell whats wrong. I would also see the cars records buy going to a dealer and see if this was the problem the previous owner got rid of the car, they use the VIN and get a report on maintenance and complaints.

 

You can probably shift to N and restart without much problem while at speed. It's going to be safer than coasting to the shoulder.

 

Yes, I agree. If it was your lost motion springs or a clogged fuel filter it wouldn't be a intermittent spontaneous happening solved by simple re-starts. Both those causes would result in more consistent symptoms.

I'm thinking it is coil, spark or electric in nature.

I once owned a Ford Taurus that would mysteriously die, if you turned the wheel too sharply to the left. The only way to get it to restart was to pop the hood and bang on the battery connections. Good Times....

 

Before you do anything else you should put some "Heet" in the gas tank to see if there may or may not be water accumulation in the fuel. I haven't had the problem with my Fit but have with other vehicles that have acted the same as your car is. The Heet will absorb water and allow it to mix with the gasoline and burn.

 

Good point, just adding Iso heet in the red bottle, yellow bottle is methanol which grabs the water but falls to the bottom of the tank where as iso heet grabs the water and holds it in suspension so no fuel separation and acts like acetone.

 

Thanks for all the help guys. I will put some heet in the tank and if it stalls again I'll take it to the dealer to have them get a reading on where the problem is. But back to the MPG question, I am averaging just over 33MPG's. When I go back home from school, I usually draft off semis and I actually got 54.7MPG's!

 

54.7 is exactly what I was consistently getting in an 82 VW diesel Rabbit... Be careful with that tailgating. That is some amazing mileage though. I reread your post and noticed that you stated that "it may be running on 3 cylinders".. If it has been running rough or cutting out at speed it is possible that you are having problems with the ignition coils as suggested by DSM... On a car with manual transmission pushing in the clutch separates the engine power from the transmission and they will continue to run with a dead coil where and automatic is putting more of a load on the engine.. You might try shifting into neutral as you are coming to a stop so you can use the throttle to keep the revs high enough that the engine doesn't die until you are able to find the cause and have it fixed.... You might see if this thread describes your problem https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...ine+stuttering