2003 Isuzu Rodeo Direct Injection from North America - Comments

I have an 2004 isuzu rodeo, and at any given moment while driving it will just shut off. I could be sitting at the light or just making a turn and it will shut off. granted it will start right back up, but the fact that it shuts off is crazy to me. I've taken it to more than one isuzu dealership and each time they don't seem to know what's wrong with it. I can't understand what is going on and I don't know what else to do. if anyone has had any similiar problems please contact me.

Have any dealers offered you to drive with diagnostic equipment fitted? This did the trick with a Saab that I had where the automatic transmission had a life of its own, they quickly found out that there was a periodic problem with the TPS or the wiring from the TPS to the engine management system. What happened is that I wanted a kick-down or to accelerate, but the transmission didn't know and did not shift down, sometimes it did, but sometimes it didn't which was scary when overtaking.

I drove with this equipment for half a day until this problem happened and they could read this right away and the problem was fixed within the same day.

It seem that there is an enormous difference in knowledge between dealers and I've heard other stories where the dealer just replaces a lot of parts randomly to find out what's wrong and people spend a fortune and are still not getting their car fixed. If the dealer says he can't find the problem I'd ask him what kind of diagnostics he'd done. Most just do static diagnostics by getting error codes from the cars computer and if no error codes appear they think it's all fine. And they'll charge you $100 for doing so. It's useless and you could easily do the same by purchasing an ODB-II DTC reader from the Internet. An example is the ProScan tool that I've used before for racing purposes on generic EFI systems.

Static diagnosis is simple--getting an error code when the CHECK ENGINE light is on. What's really complicated is the logging functionality and how to interpret the readings. That's where the lacking expertise of the dealers are apparent. A skilled technician will be able to pinpoint the problem right away, but it seem that most dealers don't know how to use these tools properly. Anyhow it's sad to say that sometimes it's necessary to know your car intimately to be able to keep it running properly since the dealers simply don't have the knowledge (or the interest?).