Hi,
Recently my Protege (manual transmission) has had a problem, well two problems but I think they're one and the same. Firstly when in neutral and idling occasionally the RPM will drop almost enough to stall itself for a second, then it will jump back up to 900-1000RPM or so.

Also, when shifting to first gear from a stop if you let off the accellerator and just coast at idle it will start jerking and bucking. You have to either step on the gas (almost to the floor) to get it to stop, or hit the clutch, or shift to second gear.

Probably on a related front I've noticed that it is much easier to stall going into first gear from a stop now. It's almost as if it is idling too low.

Could this be a problem with the mass air flow sensor or the IACV??

 

Browse this forum and found I had exact problem as another member, mainly hesitation through all gears and found that it was also the age of air intake hose that had a big crack in it, thus causing 'leaning' problem. So I did what he suggested and had great result. Tape the heck out of it with electrical tape (instead of spending the $48 the part store wants for a new one). So far the tape is holding up and no hesitations.
It is worth a look at to see if the age of the air intake hose is the culprit.

 

Thats what it was!! There is a kind of large hole in the ribbed air intake hose. I don't have any electrical tape right now but I'll get some and report back.

 

It works great now! Thanks!!

 

The hose tape job worked for me too. I've seen this same problem posted in a lot of different places with no good solution such as this. Nobody should have to drive with something so easy to fix. My wife went months with this problem. The car is a '99 Mazda Protege.

 

intake hose $5 fix that lasts forever .
cut out ribbed area of hose insert 4 inches of 2 1/4 diameter exhaust pipe
use hose clamps at each end tighten snug fixed 4ever...

 

Hey first post, I was also having the same issue and the tape fix worked perfect. Thank you for bailing me out, it is my first car and I really didn't want to pay a lot of money for something.