I had this problem as well on my 2004 6cyl Front Wheel Drive Sebring, Auto trans. It would stall at stop lights on take off, and sometimes would sputter upon acceleration at highway speeds. The only remedy was to stop, turn it off, wait a few seconds and restart it which usually took 10-20 seconds of cranking after a stall. There was no predicting when it would occur next -- sometimes within hours, sometimes not for days.
My car's engine light would come and go, so I asked my mechanic to pull the code. The code was for the CAMSHAFT POSITION SENSOR. I did some searching online and came across a forum which described the problem exactly and solved it as well.
I replaced the sensor (about $60 from the dealer) myself without too much trouble. On my car, it was located on the passenger side of engine, just below the large radiator hose that is located there. It is on the metal part of the engine, just left of (if you're facing the car with the hood open) and below the oil filling cap. The sensor is a small electrical plug/clip with three small wires going to it (black, orange, yellow). It's held in place with one bolt that has a black wire retaining clip pushed onto it.
Remove the wire retaining clip by pulling it off, unbolt the sensor (be careful not to drop the bolt down into the engine area -- it is no fun trying to find it), pull it out of the engine, and unplug the wires from it. Installation is simply the reverse. Be sure to do this while the car is cold as you'll have to push the radiator hose out of the way a little bit with your hands.
My car has never stalled again since replacing the sensor, nor has my engine light ever returned. I hope your problem is this simple. It's worth a shot, in my opinion. Sixty dollars is pretty cheap compared to paying someone else to diagnose the problem, and if your car still stalls, you've ruled out the sensor as the problem.
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Monday, May 5th, 2008 AT 6:39 PM