94 camry- no one can diagnose the problem

hey guys,

we need a camry guy to figure this one out. been to 3 different shops in a little over a week. no one has a clue what's wrong with my wife's car. if the story was in the newspaper, the headline would read:

"Camry problem persists - mechanics baffled"

c'mon guys, i know someone can figure this one out. i'd love to go into the electrical shop and ask, "have you checked the (blank)," and have that be the problem. save everybody a lot of time.

ok, here goes.............

symptoms:

she tells me the engine light is coming on and them it loses power (stalls out) she has to restart and go up the gears from low to drive - real slow accelerattion. problem is intermittent. doesn't happen all the time. has not happened to me. car is not safe to drive like this. so i take it to work and back.

it drives fine for me but sounds a little loud. i bring it to a muffler joint. "needs a flex pipe," i'm told. "could this cause the loss of power problem," i ask. "maybe," i'm told. $125 later it's quieter but problem persists intermittently for my wife.

take it to our regular mechanic who has it two days. he tells me, "we can't get the car's computer to talk to our computer." he can't figure it out. suggests we take it to an automotive electric shop.

they have had it for two full days now (we brought to them last friday). they are telling us, "we're having a problem diagnosing the problem. let us have it a couple of more days."

so that's where we're at. any educated guesses as to the problem? i hate intermittent problems.

thanks,

mike

Reply to
mike
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If it dies out after it first warms up in the morning it could be the coil is shorting out from oil that is leaking past the O ring, Coils are common problems if yours is under the distributor cap.

Reply to
m Ransley

I agree with Mr. Ramsley. Check that distributor coil. A new distributor O-ring is about $3 from the dealership... might be time to change it too (since you have a '94).

Also, if the engine light comes on, borrow an OBD-II reader from AutoZone to diagnose the error.

"We can't get the car's computer to talk to our computer." That's a good one!

Michael

Reply to
mrdarrett

GO with ransley I had a somewhat simmilar problem with my I4 camry he was right on the money with the coil being bad. The car was hard to start but would sit & idle just fine would die when gas applied

Reply to
sqdancerLynn

hey,

they are telling me in probably need a new "computer" since it is not sending any codes at all to their diagnostic computers. they cannot even "induce" a message to be generated by the cars computer to their diagnostic computers.

what do you guys think?

mike

Reply to
mike

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