Cirrus surging at higher speeds, shuts off randomly
 

Hey guys. I'm actually posting this on behalf of my friend who owns a Cirrus. I'm not sure whether it's the 4cyl or 6cyl but I can find that out.

Anyway, for a while now the car has had some weird problems. Sometimes it'll die when trying to idle, but it can even die when you're driving and it's hard to say when it happens... it seems to be pretty random. The car will just shut off and you have to pull over and start it up again.

Also, it recently started surging a lot at higher speeds. Once you get over 50mph it'll start to lose power and slow down and then speed up again.

He had it in a shady little shop for a month and they just replaced his water pump. Didn't fix the problem.

Any ideas?

I had a similar problem with my '95 cirrus a few years ago. The car would be riding down the road and randomly cut off; it didn't start running rough or give any sign what it was going to do. Some times it would start right back up, but most times it would be random (an hour or even a day). If I remember correctly it was the crank sensor.

crank sensor ... input/output speed sensors ... maybe a vacuum leak with the intake manifold or a hole in one of the rubber/plastic hoses.