Hi,

I'm trying to troubleshoot an intermittent stall at idle on my daughter's 89 245, 225K. She's a university student 2500 miles away in Saskatchewan, Canada, now working a summer job. She has a Bentley, and through a series of Emails, phone calls and photographs, were making some progress, AKA the blind leading the blind.

Twice during the winter, with months in between incidences, the car sputtered and died when she took her foot off the gas at a red light. Both times it started right up and resumed normality. It seems to be fine at all speeds but idle.

A couple of days ago on her way home from work, it stalled and restarted 7 or 8 times at every instance when her foot came off the pedal.

She called me in the morning, not wanting to drive it. The check engine light had come on and so I got her to read the codes and she got 2-3-2, fuel system compensating for rich or lean mixture at idle.

Notwithstanding the code, for a stall at idle my mind goes to the TPS and/or it's partner in crime, the IAC. She cleared the codes, check engine went off, the car started and is currently idling normally again.

I had her run the tests on Function 2 for the TPS and Function 3 for the IAC, normal as one would expect. I then sent her to the auto parts store for some dielectric grease. With the help of 3 or 4 Emails, she and one of her room mates were able to identify the components and disconnect and then reconnect them with some grease.

That's where we are now. I have no experience with a 2-3-2 code, and seek suggestions. Is the code consistent with TPS or IAC failure, or are there other places I should be looking if the problem returns.

Last summer and less that 5k miles ago, she was home and I did a complete tune up. Timing belt, seals, hoses, plugs, cap and wires. I took off the breather box and cleaned and inspected all of the air intake components. New cat, O2 sensor and CPS as well. I took care doing it, trying to avoid her having to deal with mechanics out there who have been consistently horrendous. She had a quote recently of $280. to replace one sway bar link.

I don't know if it's her foreign plates or maybe it's Uncle Bernie's bumper sticker. They might be seeing a young girl in a foreign car and figure Daddy will pay for it. Well, guess what? Daddy will get on a plane and do it himself before he'll pay off a thieving vulture. Sorry to rant.

One more question. According to Bentley, code 2-3-2 should not activate the check engine light. A few years ago, my light came on and I got code 1-3-3, TPS shorted to ground, which was also not supposed to activate the CEL. I cleared it and it's never come back. Is Bentley wrong or is there more to it than that?

Thanks for reading,
Peter