About a year ago I was driving my 1998 Camry into a parking lot. As I put my foot on the brake, my car began to sputter and shake like it was going to stall. At the same time, my brake pedal went "hard" and I had to press down harder to slow it down. As the car slowed it shook even harder and sounded like it would stall any second, so I accelerated and was able to make into a parking spot. I turned the car off, went into the store and prayed it would start when I got back about 10 minutes later. It started up just fine and I had no problems getting home. It didn't do this again until a month later. So I took it in to the mechanic who could find nothing wrong with it. There is no check engine light, doesn't seem to be any smoke or exhaust issues. The car did this once a month for about a year. Lately it has been doing it about once a week or every other week. In the beginning it would only start doing it when I was braking to stop. Now it begins to sputter while I'm accelerating as I drive down the road. Luckily I've always been able to pull off the road and let it sit. But I can only drive it short distances because I don't want to get stuck too far from home. The mechanic said that without a check engine light to help them with the diagnostics, it could be any one of a dozen parts that might be going bad, and he doesn't want to just start fixing things which might not need fixed because it will end up costing me unnecessary expense. I am getting very frustrated and wondered if there is anyone else who has had this problem.
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