[s-cars] Perplexed

[Brett Dikeman]

On Dec 27, 2006, at 4:25 PM, Robert Myers wrote:

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> Hi Y'all,
>
> Well what with one thing and another we had to take our Christmas
> trip (~700 miles) in the urS6 with the engine cut-out problem.  Q:
> How did we take the trip?  A: With a great deal of apprehension.  Q:
> How did the car do?  A: Flawlessly.  Now the question is "Why?"

Marc Swanson and I had a chat about this once- my car loves long  
highway drives, and seems to get cranky around-town driving; the butt- 
o-meter says power is down after lots of around-town trips, and a  
good hour to two hours of highway driving will make it more responsive.

On the highway, the engine is running with very little vacuum  
compared to idling/around town driving.  I think the theory goes that  
the car sucks more crankcase gunk bumming around town, and a nice  
long highway drive clears things out.  Or, that I have a vacuum leak  
somewhere (I regularly test with a pressure tester, so this is less  
likely) and the ECU is adjusting all its adaptation values for the  
leak at vacuum, and thus screwing up mixture under power/boost.

Maybe give the crank breather system the hairy eyeball?  How's the  
car been since?  Has it gone back to its tricks?

Oh- and did you have a fresh tank of gas?  I've heard the new ethanol  
blends have a -very- short "tank life."

Let us know if you figure it out.

Brett