2006 Mazda 6 2.3L 5 speed shuts off

Good day! My wifes car will just randomly shutoff and wont restart.

The car DID have a check engine light that was on for awhile (it was for a coolant temp sensor out of spec). The temperature gauge read normally.

This has happened about 4 times now. I cleared the code and have not gotten ANY codes when it quits.

The car will just shut off after 5 minutes to 45 minutes of driving.

The car will also not rev as quickly as it used to. It struggles at about 5K rpm.

It pulls normally below 5K and doesn't sound odd.

I put in a tank of new gas thinking it might be a fuel quality issue. No change.

At this point I am thinking it might need a fuel pump.

Once I figure out how much of a pain in the ass it is to change the fuel pump, I will throw one in and change the fuel filter.

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

Rob R.

Did you ever replace the bad coolant temp sensor? On a lot of cars they feed a signal to the ECU to regulate the fuel mixture; the car could be stalling as it goes into closed loop because the signal is so out of whack. The temp gauge is usually just a glorified idiot light fed by an OBD2 signal these days, if it isn't driven by a separate sensor.