For a little while now, my car has been shuttering while idling. If I press on the brakes too quickly, the car will shut off. I was thinking it may be the throttle body.

 

if u press brakes to quickly? like ur engine is getting flooded?

 

Not really that the engine is flooding. It stalls out like it just has a bad idle. I usually stall out when I am turning into a tight turning spot, slowing down to a stop sign or light, or just sitting somewhere and idling. My average idle is 300 rpm.

 

fuel pump might be failing, could also be a vacuum leak, i had a simular issue in my work truck, it was a vacuum leak near the brake booster.

 

you idle at 300rpm?
isn't that too low?? Previous threads indicated people idl'ing around 900rpm..?

 

Vacuum leak is definitely high on the suspect list. Your idle should be closer to 500-900 depending on your transmission. Go pick up some vac line tubing, 3.5mm if I recall right, and replace every visible vac line you can get to. After that, turn the key to on without actually starting the engine, let it be on for about 3 minutes. This is called a throttle body alignment in case you've never heard of the process before. If doing those two things don't at least get your idle higher, then Teeter's suggestion at a failing fuel pump will be higher on the suspect list. But, in any case, replace the cheapest things first. Chances are much higher that its a vac leak over a pump issue, and a pump issue will likely be several hundred dollars to assess when replacing the vac lines will cost you a few bucks at most and the TBA free so start there and see what happens

 

Is there any way to check the vacuum lines before actually going and changing them out, because I have no clue what I'm doing when it comes to the vacuum lines.

I have been reading through other threads about it and it seems it could be the vac lines, TBA needed, fuel pump, throttle body.

I am going to do a vag-com test on it as soon as my friend brings my cable back to my house, but I appreciate all the help. I will post back as soon as I get some results.

 

You can give them a good visual inspection but you will want to have the replacement line on hand because if they haven't been changed in a good while, chances are they're very brittle and if you touch one, it'll likely crumble to dust in your fingers. Thats how mine were, I had luckily had the vac line on hand because it was my intention to change them anyway and when I started pulling off the old ones, they literally crumbled to dust as I pulled them off the various valves and splitters. So you can look at them, and if it looks like rubber that has rotted away in the sun for a good six years, don't touch them unless you've got the new line handy cuz you'll really have problems if you fully disintegrate one and then try to start the car without replacing it.

As far as what you'll need to do, its a very simple replacement. You yank the old one off, cut a piece off the new line that is the same length, and stick it on the same t splitter ends and other valves and whatever that you took it off of, its really straightforward, no complex knowledge required

 

Another thing to do is to pull off the throttle intake pipe (going to the throttle body), physically clean the sludge out of the EGR feeds and the throttle body, take off your valve covers, clean the hell out of them, and reinstall with new gaskets, and clean out the PCV hoses (on the V6, that's the square corrugated brittle plastic hose that goes from one valve cover, over the top front of the engine, to the other valve cover, and around to the back of the engine). It's ridiculously expensive (like $90 for a POS plastic hose that breaks easily), but you could do what a couple of us are doing and replace the bulk of it with new silicone vacuum hose (I was told by another member that it's 5/8" ID). Also, use the search feature and look up a Seafoam treatment on the vacuum system of the car - that can work wonders on stabilizing the idle on the car.

 

So should I start at those vacuum bulb things? Sorry, I told you I have no idea what to do when it comes to the vacuum assembly.