So I had experienced the cruise to a stop stall a couple times in the car, including once as I was making a very slow speed turn. I'd gotten to the point of being used to the dashboard lighting up, quickly cycling the key in the ignition and getting it up and going again.

Last night however I ran into a new twist that really freaked me out for a minute. I was making a left turn at probably 5-10mph and all of a sudden I felt the engine shut off, except this time ENGINE STALL actually appeared on the dash.

Worst of all (and luckily for me there weren't many cars on this small rd), when I cycled the key and tried to restart, nothing happened. I tried it a couple times again with no dice and was really starting to get concerned. Sat there about a minute with the key in the off position lights and emergency blinkers on, then tried to crank it one more time and this time, the engine turned over slowly but finally came to life. At this time also heard a very noticeable sound of water rushing.

Needless to say the whole thing worried me quite a bit, I did find Rich's post on his site about the potential fix with the line in the gas tank so that made me feel slightly better. Still haven't driven it again today so we'll see what happens. One thing to note, I only had a quarter tank of gas in the tank so not sure if it's the same issue (I'm hoping so!).

Anyone else ever run into not being able to recrank the engine after an episode such as this?

 

How old is your battery ?

 

interstate battery less than a year old.

 

May be a bad docking station (slot in dash) which can manifest while driving or on start up. The inserted ECU is not registered, ie "seen", so the car may not start or worse just stop running. Systems and dash light up but no engine turnover, very sporadic, may eventually start. I've heard this can also happen with a bad clutch or brake sensor, whereby their respective engagement during start-up is not recognized, but not sure about that diagnosis.

 

interesting, appreciate the insight, although i wonder why that'd be since it eventually (3rd or 4th try after a slight wait) turned over.

 

Regarding the ECU losing sight of the signal - I'll just add that cars I've dealt with before (and I'd assume AM is the same) default to keeping the engine running when/if they lose contact with the key and the engine is already running. This is done in case the battery in the key dies while driving and then the car doesn't turn off in the middle of the freeway or wherever. There's been lots of cases in cars with proximity keys where someone gets dropped off at the airport or wherever, and the other person drives all the way home minus the key.

My Land Rover would randomly die at idle - turned out to be a clogged up fuel filter. I haven't done it to my DB9 but I assume there's a way to check fuel pressure at the rail? Try the simple stuff first.
Do you get any type of check engine light or fault code when the engine dies?

 

Just to clarify, my docking station was just replaced under warranty. 2014 V8V with 11K miles. Neither plastic or crystal ECU would start car without a half dozen tries. Also stalled approaching a red light and was told that there was no way to predict when it (key not being "seen") might happen again. So, at least in my case, the docking station did not stop functioning completely but was clearly faulty and in need of a fix. And this whole issue just happened one day out of the blue.

 

If losing contact with the key will cause the car to quit running, then that is terrible design logic on AM's part and they needed fix that. It would only be a matter of time till a car shuts off and leads to a wreck, if it hasn't happened already.

 

The key is read by the ECU only for the first few seconds after the key has been inserted. Once it's identified, the ECU will allow the vehicle to start. It won't continuously try to identify the key once the engine has started. If a key is not identified (or wrong key is being used) when the ignition is turned on, a red light will flash in the instrument cluster above the fuel gauge.

 

Thanks Timodc, always appreciate technical input from a practitioner. Have you ever heard of a faulty ECU "thinking" a key has been removed while the car is in motion? While it may be that my moving car cut off due to the unrelated, and well-documented, AM stalling issue, my dealer was connecting the dots back to the ECU. Maybe because the stall happened 100 feet from their lot after I had come in to report the difficult-to-start problem.

 

You changed the battery about a year ago?
Is this an V8 Vantage?
You stall near a stop and engine cuts out out of a turn?
Has the check engine light come on?
Do you have a OBD2 tool to scan with?(even a ELM327+android will work)

Sounds like the misfire correction factors are not set and were wiped out at the time of the battery replacement. I'm not stating 100% that's the issue, but would be the first thing I would be checking(some later cars would set a code right after the cut out when accelerating). If everything looked good, then I'd jump to the clutch diagnoses(if it's a Vantage) to see how well the clutch speed reduces when hot and coming to a stop, I'd be looking to see if the clutch sticks(providing it's a Vantage), and if it's a Vantage with ASM with no factors and a worn out sticking clutch..that would be such a horrible car to drive with **** loads drivability problems.

The fuel pipe hoses issue is mainly when the tank is full(or near full) and you do a hard stop or take a hard corner to a stop. The fuel slosh in the tank kicks up and gets sucked in by the vapor line at the top of the tank, mixture is to rich with raw fuel versus a vapor mist and stalls out the engine.

 

I had a similar phenomena with a different car. Engine shut down in corners and at one shut down while driving and started weak a while later and battery was still good.

I had a lose mass cable on the battery. It was on but not all tight after a dealer visit.

 

Thanks for your help.

Also in general, thanks for the feedback/discussion so far, but since I have an '07 without the crystal key I can safely rule that out as being related I would think.

 

Link to misfire corrections procedure...
https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/...rrections.html

 

Wow this is immensely helpful.

Couple questions then, if the car was tuned by RSC after the battery install (and I'll probably have to go back to the previous owner to figure out when it was tuned), would the tune be erased if the battery was disconnected again? Furthermore, does hitting the battery kill button in the trunk do the same thing as disconnecting the battery? Bc I had to do that when there was some work done on my steering wheel pretty recently.