Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Cold start idle failure?

'96 LX V6 ATX. Upon cold start, the idle RPMs drop after a few seconds and the car sometimes stalls. When it doesn't stall, it overcomensates and revs to 2000-2500 rpm before cycling like that a few times. After 30 seconds it's fine. I can (and have) live with it but I'm preparing to sell the car and I don't want to pass the trash.

I did new intake manifold seals/gaskets and all that [censored] a while back...cleaned the EGR passages, yada yada. What's the usual problem with what I'm assuming is (like most else with these cars) a common issue?

Clean your IAC valve, there is a How-To in the FAQs for V6s.

unfortunately, you are right, and hitman is most likely wrong... as usual I suppose... my '96 did the exact same thing. presumably, ford stealership could install updated code which corrected the bug in the original software. it would cost ya, of course.

so yes, they all do it, and short of $200 software flush there ain't nothing that would work.

however, you can try to pull fuses #4 and #11 and carefully relearn idle. it will be good for a week or so and then either come back to the old behavior, or will be a good girl till next computer reset. this is not very scientific, but it worked...