 but the check engine light stays illuminated constantly, and it still drives fine, he said. He's just having these issues once in a while with it sputtering. If there was something in the low gear in the tranny, would that be enough to cause it to kill at a stoplight? If it's a lock-up solenoid or something that it's stuck in gear, allowing it to engage the transmission while you're stopped, yeah, it could pull it down and kill it.