1991 Camry stalling

My 1991 Camry runs well except for one annoying problem. After heavy rains only, if the car is not garaged, upon first starting out in the morning, the car engine will cut out when at a stop sign, light, or even sometimes if I am not stepping on the gas. I have to put in park, restart and keep the foot on the gas for a while, then go into drive and hope it does not stall out. I replaced the spark plugs, distributor cap and wires, hoping this would take care of it but it did not do the trick - hate to get rid of the car for this if I solve the problem - any thoughts?

Reply to
pquetzal
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Similar problem on mine was a $ 600 mass air flow sensor or whatever it is called.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

God whats it made out of SOLID GOLD ?

Johnny UK

Reply to
JM

It might be as simple as cleaning the throttle body. I've done that a number of times on different cars and when this is needed, the symptoms are the same as you've described. If you can do it yourself, it'll cost you a couple of bucks for the cleaner and a few rags or paper towels. If someone does it for you, it shouldn't cost more than 1/2 hour labor. (It usually takes me about 10 minutes to get this job done.)

I'm sure google-ing this will turn up how to clean it. (I think I may have posted that myself.)

Good luck and let us know what happens.

Reply to
David In NH

Not suggesting that you "shotgun" the problem in lieu of diagnosis & troubleshooting, but aren't the ignition coils troublesome on these cars ? I would think that could possibly cause problems when it is very damp out if there was some sort of leakage path or whatever which kills the spark at low idle.

Just a guess.

Reply to
Justa Lurker

Its a common problem with that era, your coil under the distributor cap is bad or contaminated with oil from a bad O ring seal, remove the distributor cap and clean the coil with brake cleaner and put the cap back on tight, did you use the new dist gasket you are supposed to use? Coils do go bad. What happens is a the coil heats the moisture condenses and shorts it. And im sure after its wamed up and let sit for 45 minutes it is fine.

Reply to
ransley

Its a common problem with that era, your coil under the distributor cap is bad or contaminated with oil from a bad O ring seal, remove the distributor cap and clean the coil with brake cleaner and put the cap back on tight, did you use the new dist gasket you are supposed to use? Coils do go bad. What happens is a the coil heats the moisture condenses and shorts it. And im sure after its wamed up and let sit for 45 minutes it is fine.

Reply to
pquetzal

Go for ignition coil it was my issue

Reply to
ransley

how can you be so stupid as to spend 600 dollars for a mass air flow sensor. it's people like you that enable these rip of mechanics.

Reply to
Joe Wos

That was done at the local Toyota dealer. It took them over 2 weeks to fix the problem. I took it there as I would have thought they would have the equipment and training to repair the problem.

Looking on one of the Autozone or maybe another web page they mentioned that sensor could be part of my problem. I did not want to pay around $ 500 just for a part unless I knew it would fix the problem.

I did feel ripped off to some extent as they replaced two otehr sensors for about $ 100 each before they tried that sensor.

I had already replaced some of the simple low cost things like plugs, coil, wires and fuel filter. All of them had lots of miles on them and probably need it anyway.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

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