Earlier today I got off the turnpike (avg. speed of 75 mph) near my house, paid my toll, then got on the onramp for the local highway. Traffic was so thick that I could not just accelerate and merge, so I had to come to a stop and wait for an opening. While waiting, my car began to idle irregularly and roughly. Then, when traffic opened up, I hit the gas and the engine stumbled, then died! I sit there for a split second with a look on my face since this is a Honda vehicle (no powertrain issues in the multiple that I have owned), then begin to think of what could be wrong. The first thing I do is glance at the gas gauge--little over a 1/4 of a tank. So I was good there. I was able to start it right back up and and get on the road, but I decided to pull over and see what was going on.

I pulled over, put it park, and listened for anything strange. The idle was now no longer fluctuating, but it still felt and sounded rough. I called the dealership, let the service manager know what was going on, and she told me to bring the car in right away. The dealership was a 30-minute drive away, so I get back on the turnpike and head down to Fountain Acura.

Of course, since the car heard me say that I was going to take it to the dealership, it suddenly loses all symptoms of running improperly by the time I got there . They went ahead and looked the car over anyway, and found nothing wrong.

I have a '04 TL, auto, navi, with 52,2xx miles. This has only happened once.

Has anyone ever experienced anything like this before?

 

Anyone have any input?

 

EGR valve got stuck?
One of the other threads mentioned a TSB on it, try that thread to see if the symptoms are the same.

 

The EGR valve puts some of the exhaust gas back into the intake stream to help with emissions. It opens above some rpm/throttle setting. If it doesn't close, it acts like a vacuum leak, which is kinda what you described. If this was the case, it would run fine at cruising speeds.
It might not light the check engine light if this was the problem.

 

Thanks for the input. I will check for the other thread and call my dealership to see if they checked the EGR valve when I brought it in.

 

how old is your battery? it could be time for a new one. some of the symptoms were reminiscent of what happened to my 3000GT a while back. replacing the battery fixed things. the old one wasnt charging/holding a charge anymore.

 

It could be a lot of things. Do you run fuel injector cleaner on a regular basis? Has the fuel filter been changed?

 

that happened to me too, it stalled in a intersection.
04 auto TL.
dealer said it was EGR valve ($1200) and replaced it under warranty