Pontiac Repair: bad IACvalve?, advance auto parts, cold air intake

Question
I recently had my 2002 pontiac grand am gt 3.4 liter v6 serviced i had a problem with the car shifting hard the mechanic told me that there was a dirty iac valve and cleaned it the car ran fine for about a month then i installed a cold air intake now im having the problem all over again all fittings on the intake are secure i double checked them , when i disconect the battery terminals it stops and the service engine light is off until the car warms up do you think i have a transaxel problem or a bad iac valve the car has 58,600 miles on it please help if you can.

Answer
Hi Mike:

well it can be a lot of differnt things. Usuallly a dirty IAC will ot cuase a herd start. it will cause a start then stall condition. You could have a sensor that is reading bad. The air intake temp sensor on these cars have issues with them. the wires break off in the connector and cause the senor to give a false reading to the computer and it can throw off the inital fuel mixture thus a hard start. An IAC vavle will not cause a hrad shift issue. if the ses light is on I would stop at like an auto zone or advance auto parts store they will scan your engine comouter for free and tell you what the code is that's setting and then you know where to start. My guess is the intake sensor is the root cause of your issues. good luck :}