afarrell

When the weather turned colder (lows in the 20's and high's in the 30's) the automatic choke doesn't kick in. Normally I just turn the ignitions key and the choke mechanism kicks in at fast idle then slows down when the motor is warmed up a little or if I tap the gas pedal. Now I have to give it enough gas pedal to rev the engine a little bit and hold pedal down for a few minutes. If I'm on a flat surface I can just start driving. But the last few days, even though I can start it, when I pull up to a red light the engine idles very slow and sometimes dies.A friend told me this model (V8) doesn't have a mechanical choke. Before he told me this I thought I might just lubricate/clean the choke flap mechanical mechanism. Friend told me it has more to do with non-mechanical choke. I'm confused, is this something that a fairly non-mechanial person can fix or do I need to take to dealer for repair. Does this sound expensive or fairly common and minor. This is a one owner, well-maintained car with 100,600 miles. Any ideas or direction would be appreciated.

Lambykin

Mechanical chokes went out with the carburetors. My '85 Vic was the last car I've seen in some time that had a mechanical choke (well, it was automatic, but it was done with the spring & such).

Your car is fuel injected, so there's no "choke" in the traditional sense. There's a temperature sensor on fuel injected cars that is wired up & sends a signal to the computer when temps are low enough to warrant a "choke" condition. My educated guess is this is no longer functioning - hopefully someone else can either confirm what I say, or tell me I'm full of poop...

larryo340

This is usually caused by the IAC motor ( idle air control). This regulates the air the the engine controlling idle speed. They are easy to replace.

chemlab

IAC is definately a good choice to check out. I've had one go in my 88CV and a 97CV. A good quick fix if to put something really thin over the throttle backstop so it rests open just a hair. Not good for the longterm, but just to get you from place to place without stalling until you can replace the idle motor, it works great.

That said, the temp sensor could also cause problems and might be a lot cheaper if you're just blindly replacing. I think the temp sensor and the IAC motor both throw computer codes if they're not working properly so it might be worth taking it in to have the codes read if you don't have access to an OBD2 reader.