Engine stalls when the car is in motion

Hi...I have a 2001 320i petrol Touring Automatic. The car regularly cuts out about once every week. I can see no obvious correlation between speed, whether the fuel tank is empty or full, gradient or whether accelerating or decelerating. If anything it generally stalls at lower speeds when slowing down such as when stopping for traffic lights, or cornering. It has been to the local garage mechanic (..a decent bloke who has always been reliable) who cleaned out the throttle body remembering that this had worked on previous examples of the same problem.....but 1 week later it stalled again. The car is in great condition for its year but is spoilt by this very annoying fault that so far no-one can pin down....any advice welcome, many thanks.....Mark

Just had a very similar experience myself - for the first time, so it scared me! I've got an 2004 325Ci automatic and going downhill at about 35mph it stalled, so I had no power steering etc - frightening... I thought an automatic should never stall! Did you ever get any suggestions to your problem?

....none that I could act on. I took it to my local mechanic specifically for the fault which he diagnosed as a dirty throttle body. But after cleaning it out there was little difference. I also noted that on some previous posts for associated problems, the cam sensor was identified as a possible culprit. But, this should have been obvious from a diagnostic scan of the engine chip....the mechanic I used said that he had run the diagnostic program and no such fault was evident. However, the problem had been occuring about once every 7 days like clockwork, then on a journey home after work it stopped 3 times in a row and on the last stall the car jumped as if it was 'clearing its thoat'...it then lasted over 2 weeks before it eventually stalled again.....could this be an indication of dirt in the fuel system ?...I'm really not a techy so if anyone has any ideas at all......please advise, thanks

I had a very similar problem with a 190E Merc, some years ago.
Fuel pump was the problem.

the fuel pump is likely, though i would not discount the cam sensor. Most local garages stock fault code readers, you could ask them to read the codes for you or obtain a reader and do it yourself.

slinky

I've been having this trouble for the last 2 weeks. Some days it's ok and other days it will cut out 3-4 times and I'm only doing very short journeys. It's always when I'm slowing down, low revs (about 5-600) or stationary/begin accelerating. It is driving me nuts! One garage mentioned timing chains, the last one of which they charged at 1200 quid, so wanted to get feedback before I commit to this, especially as I'm looking to sell the car at the moment. Any thoughts...?

Hi....try Comma 'Petrol Tonic' from Halfords...it took 3-4 applications of 1 bottle per tank, but (touch wood) it worked....I have just clocked 1000 miles without a stall whereas it would stall within 100 before...good luck