Just wondering if anyone has some suggestions as to what my car problem is. I’ll be taking it in later this week, but would love to have some possible solutions so the autoshop doesn’t take me for too much damage.
Most of the time it runs just fine. However once in a while (say 3 times on a 20min drive) it will hesitate on the road, and hickup when idle at lights. The lights will dim, the rpms will drop, and the car shakes a little. The entire sequence takes a second or two, very brief.
It’s a 97 suzuki sidekick, 70k miles. Recent tuneup didn’t seem to help it. Tranny fluid is a bit dark, but at the right level. The serpentine belt is pretty weathered, was going to change that to see if that was the problem. No odd smells or smoke that I have noticed. Thanks in advance!
IANAMechanic
It could be lots of things.
But I had what sounds like a very similar problem, but with my 98 Ford F150.
It had been doing that for about 2 years, but stopped when I added water to the radiator “overflow” container (it had been dry). I am -assuming- that all the inter-related readings from temperature gauges and O2 sensors and what-not conspired to occasionally starve (or flood, whichever) the injection system.
Now, I’m not saying with any certainty there was an actual cause/effect here, but there was a problem with the car going into extreme low idle (and sometimes dying) but it stopped after I added water. Water is sure cheap though.
I’ll guess that there are no codes set-no check engine indicant? Have you had the OBC checked for codes? My initial thought is a throttle position sensor. Now we’ll see what everyone else has to say. 
I would check the sparkplug wires. A small crack in the insulator can do what you discribed. I once found my car had a cracked wire insulation that would short for a few seconds going down the highway. The wire would move a little and short against the manifold. The hot manifold had rubbed through the wire insulation. You couldn’t find the crack visually while installed.
One way to help check for something like that is to watch to check it at night with no lights on. It’s alot easier to see if something is shorting to ground (not 100% as you can’t see every part of every wire, and even if you could it still assumes that the current is actually arcing to the ground).
Thanks, I had done that. The wire only shorted while driving. The wire would swing sideways and the spark jump at that point.