Ford Ka stalling at junctions

[paull01]

Hi,

The engine on my Ford Ka stalls when slowing to a stop at junctions. It has got progressively worse over the last few hundred miles and now it happens every time I stop. The symptoms are:

• It usually happens when I'm slowing and depress the clutch
  It only happens when the car has warmed up
  If I blip the throttle it doesn't happen
  It restarts easily with the key
  It often restarts just by bringing the clutch back up (if moving fast enough to bring the engine back to life)
  I've just had a new clutch but this has made no difference (it was happening before and after)

I've read quite a lot on forums and they immediately point to the Idle air control valve - I've had this off a couple of times and thoroughly cleaned and this seems to work fine. When the car is idling it's quite happy to have all the electrics on (lights, air-con, fan etc) and it will adjust accordingly.

I've ordered a new one just in case but I'm not confident this will fix - I'd sooner replace a couple of obvious things myself so if I do have to resort to a garage then I can minimise the amount of things they might try and replace at higher cost.

So far, from looking around other people have mentioned:

• Idle air control valve
  Throttle position valve (hard to access)
  Lambda sensor (I'm having real problems removing this - is there a specialist tool?)
  Fuel filters
  Oxygen sensor
  clutch pedal switch

Does anyone have any ideas?

Many thanks

 

[^neo^]

first thing to do is check for any air leaks on the intake side of things. You'll find a few little rubber pipes, check these aren't split or hanging off.
Next, get some carb cleaner from halfords and clean the throttle body.
When was the car last serviced?

 

[paull01]

Thanks Neo

Car was last serviced about 6 months ago - Do you know if the throttle body is easy to get off?

Cheers

 

[MarkPRP]

Its the ICV, located on the Inlet!

Its an Easy thing to change, but try cleaning first!

Mark

 

[terryalan]

Mark prp has got it right. I cleaned the ICV on my Ka and it fixed it. Thank you Mark