Car stalling, no explanations.....am I overlooking something ? (red light, plugs, fuel)

[DottyDo]

The car : 01' Toyota Corolla. Excellent condition for being 9 years old & nearing 120k.

The problem : The car just had it's manifold replaced 2 weeks ago. I get it fresh from the mechanic & I'm driving along doing 55, and begin to slow for a red light. I'm a significant distance so I just lightly ride the break. I'm at a slow roll when I feel the car shudder (thought I was just running over pot holes) the light turns green before I come to a complete stop and as I start to accelerate I realize the "pot holes" were actually my car trying to stall out. It takes everything out of my car to accelerate, almost zero momentum. But the hesitation lasts no more than 5 seconds, and once I do gain back momentum, the car is fine. No hesitation, no weird sounds.... nothing. So I'm driving along a few days later, in heavier traffic, almost identical situation, except I do come to a stop & when I try to accelerate, I realize my car is stalled out. I turn the ignition and it makes that choking sound as it tries to start. So I put the car in park, wait 5 seconds, and start it again. Starts immediately. I pull off to the side, rev the engine, listen for any weird sounds. But nothing. No check engine light or anything. I drive it home and it's fine.
I decide to take it back to the mechanic, explain that story, he (and everyone else in the world) has a list of a things it could be, converter, sensors, fuel pump.... etc. I leave it there at 8am Monday and by 6pm Tuesday they still hadn't found anything.??? My mechanic (a family friend) promises they checked everything conceivable, test drove it 5 times, only had it act up on them the first time, and then not again. So with absolutely no explanation, I took it home. Yet my car is still stalling

I'm desperate for answers......obviously, considering if I'm resorting to asking people in a forum wtf is wrong!!
Anyone else out there have this same problem? I'm really just baffled by this and do not trust my typically reliable car anymore = [

[Mr.Cat]

Check these out: air filter, mass airflow meter, 02 sensors, dirty fuel injectors.

[WFW&P]

You drive it with the mechanic riding along.

[sailordave]

Agree with mr cat. Also, have you changed your fuel filter lately?

[Steve Bagu]

Am thinking the OP answered his own question. Everything has120K miles of wear and things are starting to go wrong. With the intake manifold replaced something got dislodged and is now causing a hesitation in the intake system. Probably needed a good blowout during assembly. (just a guess here) Doing a job at times will create another problem. I have been there with a customer now and then during my time.

[KoobleKar]

I had a similar problem (although I didn't have a new manifold installed).

Everything checked out fine and there were no idiot lights coming on.

Eventually, I decided to change the sparkplugs. When I did this, I happened to pull one of the sparkplug wires off of the ignition module completely and found it was totally corroded underneath on both the wire and the ignition pack terminal. When I pulled all of them off, all but one was corroded. The ignition pack was still working fine so I just cleaned and wire-brushed all the terminals and put new wires on her. The problem went away after that.

[midagegirl]

fuel filter i agree
also if u change gas stations i find some stations gas can make a car stall if it is bad gas.