2013 Wrangler Rubicon - Occasional, but frequent, choak/stall when engine under load
Thread Starter
JK Newbie
Joined: May 2022
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
From: San Diego, CA
2013 Wrangler Rubicon - Occasional, but frequent, choak/stall when engine under load
Hi.. wondering if anyone here has encountered this or similar issues w/their Jeep Wrangler. Trying to diagnose & looking for insights, etc.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts, comments, etc.
Anthony
2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon
85,300 miles
Manual transmission
Original owner
Regular service & maintenance intervals
Occasional, but frequent, choak/stall when engine under load
Vehicle experiences an occasional, but frequent, choak/stall which occurs…
- In 1st gear when starting from a stop.
- Sometimes in 2nd gear after reengaging clutch while driving.
- While driving on an incline (such as a highway on ramp or uphill incline through mountains)
- When in a higher gear than is needed (6th instead of 5th, 4th instead of 3rd, etc.)
- When parked/idling with A/C engaged. See video (https://ln5.sync.com/dl/fb326fbe0/72hng9mb-ty27fff6-6zz3e43j-m6hna5in)
- Occurrence is sporadic, but frequent.
- Difficult to reproduce on demand. With exception of highway incline driving as mentioned above.
- When it does occur, it typically reoccurs a few to several times during the drive.
Complete stall and won’t start for about 10 minutes
I’ve had it completely stall twice within the last few months. This occurred in 1st gear from a stop. After stall, the vehicle would not start at all. Ignition/starter worked fine, engine would just not turn over. After about 10 minutes, vehicle started as normal.
Possible related issue with Cruise Control
This may or may not be related and was not really ever a big deal but has occurred off/on since the vehicle was new.
Cruise Control will disengage for no apparent reason during long highway road trips. Vehicle does not choak/stall (as mentioned above), Cruise Control simply disengages. Sometimes I can reengage Cruise Control, and it doesn’t occur again, other times it will frequently disengage during the course of the road trip.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts, comments, etc.
Anthony
2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon
85,300 miles
Manual transmission
Original owner
Regular service & maintenance intervals
Occasional, but frequent, choak/stall when engine under load
Vehicle experiences an occasional, but frequent, choak/stall which occurs…
- In 1st gear when starting from a stop.
- Sometimes in 2nd gear after reengaging clutch while driving.
- While driving on an incline (such as a highway on ramp or uphill incline through mountains)
- When in a higher gear than is needed (6th instead of 5th, 4th instead of 3rd, etc.)
- When parked/idling with A/C engaged. See video (https://ln5.sync.com/dl/fb326fbe0/72hng9mb-ty27fff6-6zz3e43j-m6hna5in)
- Occurrence is sporadic, but frequent.
- Difficult to reproduce on demand. With exception of highway incline driving as mentioned above.
- When it does occur, it typically reoccurs a few to several times during the drive.
Complete stall and won’t start for about 10 minutes
I’ve had it completely stall twice within the last few months. This occurred in 1st gear from a stop. After stall, the vehicle would not start at all. Ignition/starter worked fine, engine would just not turn over. After about 10 minutes, vehicle started as normal.
Possible related issue with Cruise Control
This may or may not be related and was not really ever a big deal but has occurred off/on since the vehicle was new.
Cruise Control will disengage for no apparent reason during long highway road trips. Vehicle does not choak/stall (as mentioned above), Cruise Control simply disengages. Sometimes I can reengage Cruise Control, and it doesn’t occur again, other times it will frequently disengage during the course of the road trip.
Last edited by acreidler; Oct 14, 2024 at 11:50 AM.
Thread Starter
JK Newbie
Joined: May 2022
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
From: San Diego, CA
This is an update to my initial post. The cause of my problem turned out to be a faulty Crank Position sensor. $26 from AutoZone and about 5 minutes to replace. I've been running with the new sensor for a few months now and have not experienced any problems.
JK Newbie
Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
did you lose all power steering and then it would just crank and crank but not start? I saw on another Jeep forum to disconnect the neg battery terminal and it resets. That works every time. But I need to fix this asap before it kills me. I truly hate this pentastar engine.
JK Jedi
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 11,346
Likes: 2,086
From: Willow Park, TX
so I’m having this same issue. 2013 jku rubicon. The stalls don’t seem to be related except for when it’s under load or has to downshift for more power (automatic trans).
did you lose all power steering and then it would just crank and crank but not start? I saw on another Jeep forum to disconnect the neg battery terminal and it resets. That works every time. But I need to fix this asap before it kills me. I truly hate this pentastar engine.
did you lose all power steering and then it would just crank and crank but not start? I saw on another Jeep forum to disconnect the neg battery terminal and it resets. That works every time. But I need to fix this asap before it kills me. I truly hate this pentastar engine.