So my kid tells me that when he was driving home last night the car kept dying. He said it happened a couple of times while he was turning. I figured it was a loose battery cable or something. So today I tighten it up and drive it around the block. No problem.
About 30 minutes later he and my other kid are driving to the recycling place and it dies again. I drive it back and realize it has nothing to do with the battery...it's seems to be some sort of air intake problem.
I open up the air filter box and take out the filter.
There's about 2 cups worth of dry dog food in the box.
What the hell? I ask both kids if they know what the hell is going on. Is one of their friends playing a joke or something? Neither one of them had any idea.
So on a hunch I google it. It's happened to other people before. The answer? Mice use the air filter box to store food that they've foraged.
We cleaned it out but that wasn't the cause of the problem.
Back to google again and figured out it was a gummed up IAC valve. Fixed it.