Hi Everyone.

I have a 94 E320 with 250,000 miles. The car runs great except for an intermittent starting problem. I wonder if you guys could help me figure it out.

Most of the time the car starts OK. The engine turns over and catches immediately, revs up to about 1,000 rpm then settles down to a nice smooth idle. But every once in a while it'll catch, rev up, then almost stall out. The engine drops well under 500 rpm, shudders a bit, recovers, and begins to idle normally.

It only does this "almost stall" thing occasionally, maybe once or twice a week. I can't find any pattern to it, it seems pretty random. It doesn't appear to matter whether it's a cold start or hot.

I recently had the car in the shop to replace a plugged EGR tube. On a whim I had them replace the fuel filter, thinking the problem might be related to the fuel system and the filter is a cheap and easy thing to try. To my surprise, this actually cured the starting problem. For a month or two, anyway. Now the problem is back.

Any ideas on what's going on?