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Stalling! 2006 Charger Hemi 5.7

37K views 22 replies 13 participants last post by  RexVenator 
#1 ·
Ok, so my 2006 dodge charger Hemi 5.7 has started to stall again!! I say again because it has stalled for a couple of reasons in the past. It had the gas tank issue - fill up with gas and the car stalled because gasoline was getting sucked into the EVAP system. That was a pain but it was fixed. The second stall episode was due to the ECM - that one was scary. The car would cut out at anytime - a few times going 70 MPH on the highway in heavy traffic. I had the ECM replaced and that fixed THAT issue. Now the car is stalling at idle or while slowing down/stopping - typically after sitting overnight or after work (8 hrs). This typically occurs within 5 or so minutes of startup. I have so far replaced - TPS, EGR, ECT sensor and the transmission conductor plate (I had a P0700 code & I thought it was the conductor plate). Likely threw the code because the engine shut off while I was slowing down and caused some generic code off from the TCM. There are no other codes - it's really frustrating and (although I love the car) it has me on edge because I don't know if it's going to stall on me - I live in DFW (dallas/fort worth TX) and traffic is horrible. Please let me know if you have any ideas on what the issue might be. I'm thinking there might be an issue with the EVAP system - no codes. However, upon my hours of research, I read a similar issue with a Chevrolet Trailblazer - guy replaced alot of stuff and his problem ended up being solved by replacing the vapor canister. All insight is appreciated. Thanks!
 
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#2 ·
See if it's possible to datalog. If you know when it's going to happen and can replicate it, it might help to have a tech hook up his computer and record all the paramaters of the engine just before it's going to stall.
 
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#3 · (Edited)
I had the ECM replaced and that fixed THAT issue. Now the car is stalling at idle or while slowing down/stopping - typically after sitting overnight or after work (8 hrs). This typically occurs within 5 or so minutes of startup
I experienced the same scenario with my previous Jeep Grand Cherokee. I took it into the dealership and they said they could not recreate the problem, diagnostics did not show anything wrong, and no DTCs. I asked them how they tested it. They said they hooked it up to their diagnostic test system in the service bay. I said that doesn't prove anything ... road test it. The mechanic took it for a test drive and a mile down the road it quit on him ... now he was a believer.
They installed a new ECM and everything worked fine for about a month or so. Then it all started again. I took it back to the dealership (they warranty their parts/labor for 12 months) and they replaced the ECM again. Turns out the first ECM they put in the Jeep was a remanufactured part. It's not unusual for expensive electronic modules to be sent back through a remanufacturing process. They test the returned module and replace any internal components that fail their test process. If the module is not repairable they scrap it. If the module passes the test process as "no defect found" (NDF), or is repairable, they put the module back into circulation as a "equivalent to new" remanufactured part.
If the module is NDF, it doesn't always mean it did not have a problem, it just means they couldn't recreate/detect any problems during their remanufacturing test process. So they track these remanufactured modules and if a module has been returned two or three times as NDF ... they scrap it.
Take a look at the labels/markings on the ECM they put in your car. If it's a remanufactured part (markings/labels will identify it as remanufactured), and nothing else can be found wrong with the car, I would suspect the ECM.
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#4 ·
My car has the same issue but it does it without shutting off car would be turned on and won't move and I would hear a weird whining sound from the right side of the hood, if I leave the car and not drive it for 3 days it would work fine four a couple of hours then come back again with the same issue and stall out without shutting off I would have it on drive and it would be as if it's on neutral.
 
#5 ·
Thank you for your replies. After letting the car sit for a couple of days I hooked up the scan tool and monitored the EVAP - after about 1-2 minutes the EVAP started to be commanded open - moved to 18%/22% - about 10-15 seconds after it opened the car stumbled a bit and stalled. I thought the EVAP purge valve wasn't opened until the engine was warmed up and off idle (anyone know exactly what parameters the PCM monitors before opening the EVAP purge valve?) . I have a suspicion that the purge valve is failing - likely opening more than the PCM is commanding and causing the car to stall at idle. Since the issue is intermittent - no codes have been set; not sure if any would be set of the described problem. I'm going to replace the purge valve ($30 or so - much less than the few hundred I've already spent). I'll follow up once I have replaced it. Thanks!
 
#6 ·
ISSUE FIXED!!!! It turned out to be a bad PCM...again. This time I did not get another one from the guys in Florida; I'm convinced they sell JUNK!!! I went through two of their faulty units. I bought a unit from Cardone. Very pleased - I've driven about 8k miles with no problems & my gas mileage went up from 16.5 to 19/19.5! I hope this helps - great cars but this is a horrible issue that Dodge has managed to ignore. - Edgar
 
#8 ·
Edgar, first and foremost THANK YOU for posting a *FIXED* response. As a mechanic, I'll occasionally search the web for weird issues. Often, you'll find many people on forums posting the exact symptoms you're chasing, and you might read a few dozen posts, then, the thread goes dead. They never post what actually fixed their problem. So a big 'atta boy! for being helpful to others by sharing your issues AND what solved your car.

Secondly, and why I've signed up on chragerforums, is that I've got an 06 Charger in my shop that stalls rather annoyingly at idle. I was hoping to get some further input from you. The customer came to me frustrated after two other shops have failed to help them. One was the Chrysler store, which put a fuel tank in, then gave up when that didn't fix it. Another was a quick lube style shop, which suggested it was an EGR valve, because the car would stall every time the EGR valve was energized. This last bit IS true, the car stalls when the EGR valve is energized, but I believe this is just causing the failing PCM to glitch, and stall the engine.

(Tech bit, YES the EGR valve can stall an engine by allowing too much exhaust through, and choking the engine. However, 1) I'm opening the valve to the lowest setting, this should NOT stall the engine, and 2) The engine never opens the EGR valve at idle, so this doesn't make sense for a rational fix anyhow)

Anyhow, what I'm saying is I came to the same conclusion you did, that the PCM is failing, and just cutting the car off randomly at idle. My REASON for posting, is I too got a re-manufactured PCM from a shop in Florida, and IT did not fix my Charger. Now, one of two things has happened. 1) I was wrong, and the PCM is NOT the cause of the stalling. or 2) The reman PCM which LIKELY had a queer stalling issue, wasn't re-manufactured properly, and still has the defect.

Now I've never rebuilt a PCM, so I would be terribly out of line for suggesting that people are doing hack work. I have no clue what is involved in fixing a glitching PCM. I do know that I DID work at a Chrysler dealer for a shade over 3 years, PCMs were a FREQUENT failure part, and even CHRYSLER REMAN PCMs had a higher than acceptable failure rate, right out of the box. So much so that the parts department tried using aftermarket rebuilders in an effort to get a better success rate.

If you're still reading this far, thanks Edgar. But if you would, please PM me the name of your PCM rebuilder. I'm thinking we might have used the same folks. I don't wish to slander them publicly if like I said, the PCM isn't the problem. And I'll try to keep you updated with the car in my shop. I hope I'll get the chance to fix it, but unfortunately cars like this can get pushed away, and nobody wins. I can explain more the theatrics of a shop and why this happens if you wish, but ultimately it is the TIME involved in figuring out these queer little quirks which make an otherwise very nice car, undrivable.
 
#9 ·
Warning - There seems to be a lot of bad rebuilt PCMs being sold, even the ones from the dealer!

I had random stalling problems for 2 years and replaced everything I could think of. I had ruled out the PCM after replacing it twice.

Thousands of dollars and headaches later, it turned out that the trick is that I had to replace the PCM 3 times! It's been a couple of months now and it has not stalled.

I paid about a thousand for the dealer to replace it, then they replaced it again under warranty, and it still didn't work. Finally, I found a place on ebay that would send me a replacement already programmed for my car for $250.

I hope this helps somebody. I was going out of my mind.

2006 Charger R/T
 
#10 · (Edited)
Thanks for your 2 cents Randall. I put a call in to my old dealership, and talked to the foreman down there (this fellow hops from problem vehicle to problem vehicle, and helps brainstorm the issues, rarely gets any of his 'own' to fix). Anyhow, he recalled a Charger that I threw two or three PCMs at before the stalling issue went away. Recalled another the needed the same treatment to cure it of a random stall.

That's the frusterating thing about these 'reman' PCMs. What exactly is being done inside them? For example, I had a Buick the other day where the odometer / PRNDL display in the cluster had stopped illuminating altogether. I've learned that in the clusters 4 resisters break the solders, and loose connectivity to the board. I bought 3 dollars worth of resistors, soldered them in, and could've labeled the cluster 'remanufactured' and resold it for a premium. The reality is I only fixed 3% of the board. Any other problems in the cluster would've still been present, but I cured the most popular problem.

I've fixed a bunch of Chrysler no start PCMs, which won't communicate at all. These are much easier to test and thus verify that a re manufacturer has fixed the issue. These random stalling PCMs work perfect 99.5% of the time. I'd imagine they'd be very hard to KNOW as a remanufacturer that you've resolved the issue unless you replace EVERYTHING in the PCM, then we're pretty much at a new unit.

Anyhow, Randall's comments, and my discussion with my old foreman encourage me to keep at these guys and make sure they provide me with a good PCM.
 
#11 ·
Update: While the PCM rebuilders received the suspect reman PCM on Tuesday morning, only just now did I receive an update. "There is another PCM on the way, 2-3 business days". Myself and my service adviser called several times to get this tiny bit of information. No admission of guilt, "Yeah, we found an issue" or if they're just sending another to shut us up.

Again, this is a very tricky issue to accurately diagnose. So my hope is this 2nd PCM will be the ticket. It is very difficult to definitively say "Yes, the PCM is failing."
 
#12 ·
Well fudge. Got reman PCM 2 this afternoon, installed it, and the car stalled 10 times within 10 minutes. So either I'm dealing with an incompetent PCM rebuilder, or I gotta face the possibility that there's nothing wrong with the PCM.

I've seen somebody mentioning bypassing the ASD relay to fix their stall. Well, I also bypassed the ASD relay, and the stall issue remained.

There's also several bulletins and people suggesting some electrical interference from faulty plugs. This has always sounded like a tall tale to me, but I also don't know where to go. I'm trying to run it with coils unplugged, to see if it is cured, but this is inconclusive at best. I'm on the passenger's side, with cylinders 2, and 6 unplugged, (I also unplug the accompanying injector to prevent fuel loading the converter) the car has still stalled out. However with 4 and 8 unplugged, it hasn't stalled yet. But this is still inconclusive, because the stalling issue is random, and it could run for an hour, then stall on the 61st minute. Or stall after 30 seconds.

Suggestions welcome! I am a mechanic, but I'm not a know-it-all.
 
#13 ·
Further update, the car seems to resolve itself of the stalling as it warms. That is, the longer it runs, the less likely it is to stall. So trying to isolate things works best when it is cool. This morning, cool engine, it stalled promptly after start up. I went back into my cylinder deactivation routine, on cylinders 1, and 3 it still glitched rather quickly. I went back and tried 4 again, and it ran for a spell. Tried 5 and 7, and stalled promptly on those. Went back to 4, ran for quite a while. Tried number 8, stalled there too. Back to 4, and it ran for another 20 minutes. Then I reconnected 4, and ran it totally assembled. Ran for another 15 minutes just fine. So I shut it off and am letting it cool. I'm going to see if I can get it stalling again frequently and try 4 again. As it stands, I've had it stall with 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 disconnected. But it has ran a LOT with number 4 disconnected without issue.

I could be getting near an answer. Or weird coincidences could be teasing me and wasting my time. Hopefully I'll get it cool, it will stall often again, and maybe I'll see if 4 will cure it then.

IF that turns out to be the case, it's either a coil, or a pair of spark plugs. Injector too I recon, but the bulletins suggest it is interference from the ignition system backfeeding to the PCM that causes the issue. So likely the plugs or coil. I have pulled the plugs, and they're factory plugs (22k miles on this 06 5.7L), which look totally fine. I'll hopefully update later with good news.
 
#15 ·
*** FIXED ***

Great news! I believe she's cured. The unfortunate news is the PCM wasn't the culprit. Looks like a single coil was causing the whole engine to stall out. Totally bizarre, but that appears to be the case.

What I did: After the car cooled again it was a stalling mess, wouldn't run 20 seconds without dying. I unplugged the #4 coil and injector, and the problem went away, it ran for several minutes. Idled around the lot. Plugged coil back up, died twice within 30 seconds. Unplugged, ran for 5 minutes. Plugged back up, died again. So I swapped #4 and #6 coil. Unplugged #4 coil, and it ran and died. Same test on #6 coil, and the car ran and ran. Reconnected #6 coil, car died.

This seemed rather conclusive. The car was rather helpful to stall so easily once I was getting near the root of the issue. Anyhow, I replaced the faulty coil, and the car hasn't stalled since.


To try to be helpful to others who might fight this; here were my exact symptoms for review: 06 Dodge Charger R/T with a 5.7 Hemi. Car would shut off randomly at idle. While I didn't drive it a whole lot, I did drive it occasionally, and it never stalled with my foot in the gas. Customer said the same, only stalled at closed throttle. Also, the car didn't stumble, or choke, it just shut off. As if somebody turned the key off, the engine went from smooth idle, to off. Sometimes, it would do an RPM flare. That is, it would kind stumble, then IMMEDIATELY shoot up to 1500 RPMs, and almost as quickly drop back down to idle. Since replacing the coil it hasn't flared or stalled. Also, as I stated above, it seemed to get better when the engine warmed. With a hot engine, the car could idle for an hour without issue.

So my recommendation to somebody with similar issues, is make sure the stall is semi-repeatable. If you notice it doesn't stall as much when hot, then you're better served to let the engine cool off before testing. Then, what worked for me was unplugging one coil and matching injector. I unplug the injector so that the cylinder you disable doesn't pump raw fuel down the exhaust which is very bad for the converter. IF the engine stalls, the you can assume that the coil you just unplugged is not the issue. Reconnect and try another cylinder. If you find that the car runs fine with a particular coil unplugged, then reconnect the coil, and attempt to get it to stall again. You want to make sure the stall issue is still present, then unplug the tricky coil again. The theory is that by removing the offending coil from the circuit your stall issue should too go away.


Anyhow, that's it for me. I hope this information helps somebody.

Oh and that 2nd reman PCM turns the check engine light on solid. Four different oxygen sensor heater codes. Reconnect original PCM, no codes. Plug up reman PCM, all 4 codes return. Hopefully the reman folks will just take the thing back, I'm tired of farting with them.
 
#19 ·
2006 Charger with same problem

Thank you everyone for having this thread. I am having the same problem with my 2006 Charger RT 5.7...I had the spark plugs replaced and it kept having the same issues so we are going to try the coils. I will update if this solves the problem!
 
#20 ·
UPDATE - Hello Everyone, a quick update on my original stalling post. The Cardone unit that initially fixed my stalling issue failed a couple of weeks ago. It lasted about 40K miles (220K miles on car)...I guess not a bad run. However, the issue was not the same as the original failure, this time I got 11 engine codes (10 O2 sensor related - heater circuit and P0633, immobilizer key). I noticed a really bad miss at startup when the car went into closed loop; engine shaky and it would stall. I was about 45 miles from home at work when this happened, to get me out of the pinch I figured I would rev the engine at startup (open loop) and hopefully heat up the O2 sensors enough to start up the O2 sensors. This worked and I was able to drive home (car ran great). Rather than go through replacing O2's and throwing parts into it I figured the PCM was bad (again) - it's nearly impossible for all four O2's to go out. I replaced the PCM with another Cardone unit from O'reillys; it cost alot more this time since it did not come pre-programmed with VIN/Mielage (extra $160 at local shop to have it programmed-took all of 5 min). Prior unit was purchased from Autozone (plug and play); Autozone has discontinued the Cardone units. The car has been running fine for about 500 miles. Note - I believe heat it a big culprit in the PCM failures; I noticed that the unit failed during a heat wave the first time the unit failed during a heat wave this time (temps were 100-110 here in DFW when the unit failed). The unit is in a horrible spot on the firewall - all the heat hits it; can't be handled after driving a few miles. I fashioned a heat shield to try and keep the hot air off of it but I would rather relocate it inside the cabin. If anyone knows a supplier for plugs, please let me know. Good luck to you!
 
#21 ·
So, I have a 2006 Charger 5.7 hemi....she runs good in the winter, but seems in the summer, if I have to wait at a drive thru for 10-20 min, I will get down the road a couple of miles, and it's like someone turned the key off. It still stays "on", but will not move and my RPMs drop to zero. It did it again yesterday, and when I took a bottle of water and cooled the computers down it would start back up, and ran good for another 10 miles, to where even that would not work or help the situation. My car is not getting "hot" on my gauges. I have replaced so many parts, and have hooked it up to a computer with no codes throwing. I'm at my witts end with this vehicle, and the dangers of having my daughter in the vehicle with me when it does this stupidity especially on 100+ degree days. Please help!!!
 
#22 ·
It could be the PCM (powertrain control module). Electronics and circuit boards are affected by heat. There may be enough heat getting generated in the engine compartment to affect the PCM. The other possibility is the FCM (front control module) that is located on the front side of the fuse box. The FCM acts as a link between the CAN bus networks for critical powertrain modules.

Heat related electronics problems can be difficult to isolate. I had a similar problem with my Jeep Grand Cherokee. The engine would just quit while idling at a stop light or when decelerating after a few miles. No codes. Tested fine at the dealership when hooked to their diagnostic system in the service bay. I told them to test drive it. Sure enough, about a mile down the road the engine quit on them. They replaced the PCM. Everything was fine for about six months and then the new (remanufactured) PCM started doing the same thing. Dealership replaced the PCM again. I traded-in the Jeep before it could happen again.
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