I have a 1998 cherokee sport 4.0 2WD automatic and it has been running great up until about 2 months ago when occasionally when I start the vehicle it will immediately die if I don't keep giving it gas. To fix this I have to quickly put it into either drive or reverse and drive a bit, then it acts normal. There doesn't appear to be any pattern as to when this occurs. Sometimes when the engine is cold, yet other times when I try to start it after I've just ran into the store to pick something up. Thank you all very much in advance for any help you can provide me.

 

While there are a few possibilities, the #1 cause of stalling at idle is a marginal battery.

And yes, you CAN absolutely have a battery strong enough to start the engine, but marginal enough to give the engine management system fits and stall the engine.

Sometimes with a marginal battery, it wants to stall right when you start it, but when the charging system has even a very small period of time to start charging the battery, the symptom of stalling then goes away. It's possible this is what is going on with yours.

Start by "load testing" your battery. Any parts store will do this for you for free in the parking lot. Load testing is the only accurate way of testing a battery.

 

Test battery, it's good.

 

Check for codes .

 

Someone suggested I need to clean the IAC valve. I did that yesterday. I'll see if that corrects the issue.

 

Did you clean the throttle body as well? They can get very dirty with carbon and give you driveability symptoms/stalling, etc.

 

Check and refresh all of your grounds. When the grounds are weak, our XJ's can act weird. Check the TPS and IAC.

 

So far so good.