Starts run for a min and dies, and repeat

[Rubicon]

Hello all, I'm having issues with my inlaws wave ( I know, it's the same car as the aveo or so I'm told). So I went and looked at it, their is no codes either stored or pending, and my scanner does not do live data ( want to buy one that does), but the car starts up normally, and runs for a minute and dies. It will start up right away again and will die again, you can repeat this as many times as you like. When it's running it runs awesome, reves up, sounds fine, nothing out of the ordinary.
I can keep it running by stepping on the gas and revving it up, but it won't idle. You can drive the car as well you just can't come to a stop, as it will die as soon as it get close to the idle. I haven't really had a chance to look over the car super close, all the fuses are in good, the air filter is good, it had new plugs back in the summer, a recent oil change, a new battery, as it requires maintenance, I do it so I got a bit of history on the car.
The last thing that they did to the car was fill it up, but it runs fine on start up and revving it up I don't think it's gas related.
So where do I start? What to check? Any ideas? I searched the forum before posting, and when I go and see the car, I'm gonna be checking the intake hose, and cleaning the throttle body ( it was dirty).
Thanks

[Daox]

Welcome to the site Rubicon.

What year is the car? Auto or manual? Does it stumble, or just die clean?

I'd definitely start with throtle body / IAC valve cleaning.

[Rubicon]

Welcome to the site Rubicon.

What year is the car? Auto or manual? Does it stumble, or just die clean?

I'd definitely start with throtle body / IAC valve cleaning.

Sorry it's an 07 auto, and bare bones. No power anything. It's a clean idle and then a stumble and dies. Where is the IAC on the eng, I tried to see where it is, but no luck in finding where it lives. I must be searching wrong again. Lol.

[Daox]

Its integrated into the throttle body.

[Rubicon]

Awesome, thanks for the info. Is it a pull out and clean, or clean in situ?
Thanks for the quick replies

[06T200]

It's easier to remove the TB so you can clean behind the butterfly valve. Also make sure there are no vacuum leaks, like the brake booster hose, etc.

[petrified.rabbit]

there are quite a few things this could be. I would suspect some sort of sign when it dies. I would also lean towards electrical issues. Mechanical are less likely to be forgotten (meaning it won't just restart).

When it does does anything else go of? You said it dies clean, so I would lean towards fuel or spark cutting out. You could try rearranging the relays, particularly for the fuel pump and main relay.

It could be a few other things, but i would suspect codes of some sort. But if its the "Clean" cut off that leads me to believe it is an electrical error, a bad sensor, throttle body, anything like that would chug and "fight" before stalling. And most likely not immediately restart.

[Rubicon]

there are quite a few things this could be. I would suspect some sort of sign when it dies. I would also lean towards electrical issues. Mechanical are less likely to be forgotten (meaning it won't just restart).

When it does does anything else go of? You said it dies clean, so I would lean towards fuel or spark cutting out. You could try rearranging the relays, particularly for the fuel pump and main relay.

It could be a few other things, but i would suspect codes of some sort. But if its the "Clean" cut off that leads me to believe it is an electrical error, a bad sensor, throttle body, anything like that would chug and "fight" before stalling. And most likely not immediately restart.

Depends on the definition, by yours, it's not 100% clean it struggles for less then a sec, ( you hear it idle down low, occanisialy it will rev up and then die). There are no codes thrown, I checked before starting it, while it was running for the second, and after it died. No codes stored or pending. I was hoping it was a sensor ( easier to fix) but I can keep it running if I feather the gas on/off but as soon as I quite that it will die. I get to play with the car this weekend, I'll keep you guys informed on what I find.

[Rubicon]

So I searched around trying to find where the iac valve lives, and found it on line. The issue is now that the car has a fly by wire system and no throttle cables going up to it. Is there still a iac valve then for me to clean? I'm going down to look more at the car today, and am gonna clean as much of it as I can hope this fixes the issue, but if not where else should I be looking? Can I still remove the TB out of the car for cleaning ( that's my plan anyways), or is that gonna cause more trouble? I'll check back as I don't think I'll be there for at least another hour to 45 mins.
Thanks for all the help.

[Rubicon]

So as I hate threads that end with out resulation I cleaned the throttle body and the intake temp sensor, and the car ran like crap for a bit, then cleared up and started to run better. As it's now idling, I took it for a quick drive to get the temps up, and it runs like a dream now. So cleaning the TB worked for me, to get it driving, but has since thrown codes P2076 ( self cleared) and P0113 I just cleared it with the scanner ( I think it's not clean enough, will tackle that in the am), as well as a better job on the TB.
Thanks for all the help guys, now that I have it I got a small list of things that are wrong with the car from the mother inlaw so I'll be tackling that over the next day if I have the time to do all of them.