Howdy,

I've got this intermittent problem with my 95 Ford Contour that's really obnoxious, mainly because there's no way to predictably reproduce it.

I'll be driving my car along, and all of a sudden the engine just dies-- no weird noises, nothing, just drops to zero RPM. When I try starting it up again, it won't start-- it sounds like the starter is working fine (it's not turning over very slowly, or making any unusual noises-- sounds just like when it normally starts), but the engine just doesn't "catch". I think the fuel pump is working fine-- I can hear it buzz for a second (that's the fuel pump, right?) when I turn the key into the "on" position. The problem usually fixes itself within 30 minutes... usually, I'll walk away from the car all pissed off, come back, and it starts just fine, as though there were nothing wrong.

This has happened about 5 times since I've had the car, and this has been spread out over the course of about 3 years. It doesn't seem to be related to weather, or whether I'm going uphill/downhill at the time. This has never happened while I was driving on a highway--always on local roads at slower (like ~30 mph) speeds, but that may just be a coincidence. Four of the times this happened, it happened exactly as I described; I was driving along and the engine died. The other time, I was just parked and it wouldn't start.

I'm concerned because while the first 3 occurrences were very rare (like about once a year), the last two occurrences happened within a day of each other, so I'm worried that the problem may be getting worse. Also, while in my past experience it's always started back up after a half hour, I have no way of knowing whether this trend will continue, and it would really suck to get stranded while I'm on a longer road trip

I'm not sure if this is related to the following other problem I've also had for a while: about a year ago, my CEL came on; ever since then, it's been intermittently on. I took it to autozone, the code they read off was 332 (I think), the explanation for which was that my EGR valve wasn't opening. I replaced the valve myself, but the code came back on. Took it to my (ex-)mechanic, who spent a day--and charged me several hundred $$--trying to figure out what the problem was, and came up with nothing. Being a struggling student with not much money to spend on my vehicle, I opted for the cheap solution, which was to ignore the problem . It's been a year, and several 10k miles, since then, and no noticeable problems except of course for the intermittent CEL. Note that this problem with the CEL started AFTER the first occurrence of the not-starting problem. Also, the CEL comes on far more frequently (almost every time I drive) than the other problem occurs.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas. Should I just bite the bullet and take the car to a dealership?

Thanks in advance,
--afn