bad day.. car on the side of the road
 

Ok, so lately my car had been dying at stop lights. It almost never cranks back over. I have to push start it to get it going quickly. Yesterday my car died and i was up hill so i couldn't push start it. I went back to the car 7 hours later and it started right up. I already knew my plugs were a lil overdue, and that it could also cause this problem. I replaced them today and some plugs were worse off than others which is strange. Well my idle smoothed out and things were looking up. 2 hours later it dies at another stop light. It idle's low shakes and dies just like every other time. No codes other than evap and other than that my oil was pretty low, so i added 2 quarts. While changing my plugs i noticed one of them was rather forced in. It came out ok but wouldn't allow the new plug to screw in all the way. I tapped it and put the new plug in with no prob. so before i spend more money on plugs, or randomly replacing coils.. is there anythign i can do to troubleshoot?

Check your CAT, see if its clogged. How about coils? Those go too.

Cat fine, coils fine, plugs fine, then maybe compression check.. What year is your car? how many miles?

if the cat was clogged it would throw a code right? same for coil right?

04, 72000 miles

No, not necessarily.

Have you ever had your coils changed or your cat checked? Cat has 80,000mi warranty I believe..

Yep...especially how it's doing it after it gets warm.....O2 would likely throw a code, but cat not necessarily, but could be O2 also.

It sounds like maybe alot of that stuff could be replaced...if you haven't replaced it in the last 30-40k miles, not a bad idea to do so.

good luck

so just randomly start replacing parts. lol. i see. i'll just wait and see if it has fixed itself i suppose

What is the evap code? The one for the O2 sensor? post the code here.

idk what the code number was.
evaporation emmissions leak, very small.
usually a gas cap from what i read.

however, since the addition of oil after it died the second time, and the properly installed spark plugs, its been running fine. i think its all ok now. it idles about 1000 rpm higher now and when i get up in the rpm's it actually gets faster lol.

Would be a good idea to reset your ECU since you just installed the new plugs. Your ECU (unless you reset it already) is stilling running as if you had your old plugs which could have an affect on your fuel to air ratio. Never hurts to reset the ECU after doing some engine work.

Then he will complain about rough idling and dieing again.

Which is normal until you drive a few cycles.

a few cycles?
lol and i love how u said complain as if i wasn't late for my didn't leave me stranded, and i wasn't late for my district meeting. im lucky i still have a job to afford it lol.

well i waited a week before resetting my computer... why today? cuz when i have my ac on, it boggs my idle down so low it dies. then it was idling radically between dead and 1500 until warm up then if i reved it up to 3000 and left off of it it would drop down around 400 rpm and stumble and almost die and then kick back up to 1000 rpm. put a new tank of gas in, with octane booster, and it smoothed out. ran my ac all the way back home ( 30 miles) and as soon as i get back into town, it dies again. at least this time it is starting right back up afther it dies and not leaving me stranded. i guess its time to take it to a dealer.

forgot to mention i also am having a lack of power in the upper rpm's. and for the first time, struggled to get up a hill starting at 55 mph.
i was having this before a little bit before i changed the plugs but it picked up afterwards.. and now its back. so im starting to wonder....
coils?
and maybe... cat.

Well, if its under warranty you can try the dealer. If not, save the money and check/replace starting at the cheapest. With that many miles, it cant hurt to tune up anyway. The stealership in the end will assrape you, unless you have connections.

ya there is a guy back home where i am from that used to work at a mazda dealership and works on all the rotories around town. i'll probably hit him up.
but if its a compression problem from what i have read the motor itself is warrentied up to 100k miles right?

yea just the motor no collateral damage so to speak ...