Quote:
Originally Posted by 11 Gauge
I'm trying to cobble up enough $$ for a down payment on a new ride, but I won't be there for a while (couple of months or so).
In the meanwhile, I have a 4 cyl '97 Camry with 200K that I'm trying to nurse along. The engine misses at idle pretty significantly, but never stalls. It's also begun to miss during acceleration, so the problem is progressing...
I replaced the spark plugs about 6 months ago, and everything was fine back then. I recently visually inspected the plug wires, vacuum lines, and anything else that may have been visually overt, but everything checks out.
I really don't want to put any money into this car, so I need advice. Should I just throw in the towel, or are there any simple tests I can perform? I know that vacuum leaks are a PITA to locate, and I probably have a few with 200K on the car.
The car ran absolutely fine up until about 3 weeks ago. Smooth idle, no surging, stumbling, or anything. Kinda odd (IMO) to go from no problem to one that even a blind person could feel sitting in the car...
Advice?
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I was going to start my answer with "where did you have it last?" :-)
As long as you still have good compression and the engine isn't leaking (or burning) anything, there's no reason to believe that with the right maintenance it won't keep going for quite a while.
Plugs and wires are a good place to start. I don't think vacuum would cause that. How about the injectors? Dirty injectors could cause similar behavior. I had a car for a while that required me to run some super concentrated injector cleaner through it every 6 months.
It might be worthwhile to take it to a good diagnostic shop and have them give it a once over.