What I meant was only use the ignition key by itself, don’t have any other keys hanging from it.
Thanks @knfenimore . Meaning the weight of other keys on the ring could affect the alignment & cause a stall? Sure, I’ll try that.
My mechanic cleaned the throttle body & ignition switches. Haven’t encountered a stall so far. Hoping this is it.
I also own a 2002 Camry XLE that suffers from the same sort of intermittent stalling issue.
The car has less than 60K miles on it and has stalled about 8 times in total (over 13 years). The amount of time that goes by between stalls varies greatly. It could be weeks, months or even years before the next stall happens (which makes it so frustrating).
It usually stalls on rainy days, but not always. It also usually stalls when pulling into the garage and coming to a complete stop but we’ve also stalled in traffic at red lights a few times. It doesn’t seem to matter if you drive 5 miles or 500 miles before the stall.
Just moments before the stall happens you can feel the engine riding rough and lunging a bit as if it’s starved for fuel or oxygen. You know what’s about to happen. Once stalled, you cannot restart the car for about 5-10 minutes, no matter how many times you try. You just have to wait it out. Once restarted the car may run fine for another week, month or year. It feels completely random.
Service diagnostics show no failure codes. We have had the throttle body cleaned but the problem continues.
@Swami, have you had any more stalls since your service? Did you ever determine the exact cause of the stalls?
@kbsanders I am certain that Swami has been setting in front of their computer screen since August 2014 just waiting for your post. Start your own post and do not resurrect old posts.
@“VOLVO V70” Why start a new post when this user has/had a similar issue to mine and may have corrected their problem and have new found knowledge of the solution? I would like to hear about their experience and see if they were able to resolve the issue. I’m not looking for theories of what the issue might be. There are plenty of those on the Internet already. I simply want to find out if they fixed their issue, and how they fixed it.
Will the ignition switch theory explain the car stalling as well or only the engine restart issue?
certainly. ignition cuts off and engine will stop.
@kbsanders I just checked and @Swami hasn’t been active since November 2014
That means he hasn’t even logged onto the website since then
Unfortunately, I don’t think you’ll be hearing from him
I have what sounds to be the same problem. The throttle body has been cleaned and the EGR valve has been cleaned. No codes. It’s very random and unpredictable. I have found that when it shuts off, if I pump the gas pedal while cranking, it starts quicker.
If it happens when wet. I would replace the plug wires. Also clean the iac.
@kbsanders , sorry wasn’t active in a while as @db4690 said.
I got the stall again today (after 9 months). So, cleaning the throttle body & fuel injectors didn’t solve the issue. No codes.
I noticed one pattern: this typically happened when braking somewhat harder than normal on a downwards slope. After 10 minutes after multiple retries, it restarted. I smelt gas as soon as it restarted.
This once happened on a wet day. Today was dry & hot. So, temperature or the weather does not seem to be the issue at least in this case.
You may need a new throttle body:
http://www.topix.com/forum/autos/toyota-camry/TM6GC5T4DHVFS52CS/p2
One thing fairly simple to check is whether the brake vacuum booster is holding vacuum like it should. Since this problem only occurs when stopping, if the booster were leaking vacuum and it only leaked during braking, that could lean out the mixture enough at idle to cause a stall.
How many keys are on your keychain, seen a lot of cars come into the shop with similar complaints with “janitor keychains”! Would explain why eng is stalling under hard braking withou setting codes. change in momentum when braking can separate the contacts inside the ignition switch due to the weight of the keys. try and wiggle your key back/forth and up/down and see if you can duplicate the stall.
Requested Toyota to research this issue. Toyota technical speculates that the most likely cause is a malfunctioning EFI Temperature Control switch.
What I understood from the service technician regarding this issue.
When the engine is cold, this would send more gas, when warmed up, it should start sending less gas. It may have malfunctioned, sending more gas causing flooding & stalling. After a while, when the gas evaporates, it will start again.
Toyota told me that it would cost $250 for parts & labor to replace this.
I think they’re referring to what is commonly called the ECTS or engine coolant temperature sensor. EFI means “electronic fuel injection”. The tech is correct about what the ECTS does; the engine computer uses the output of that sensor – along with other sensors – to determine how much fuel to inject in order to get the correct air to fuel ratio. And if it is bad, that would indeed confuse the computer and could cause the engine to run rich, possibly enough to stall out when warm.
A couple of things to consider though. First, if the ECTS has completely failed, that would usually cause a check engine light. Second, if it hasn’t failed but had become inaccurate, that would usually also turn on the check engine light b/c the computer would observe (via the O2 sensor) that the engine was running unexpectedly (in your case) rich or lean. I’m a little doubtful about this diagnosis – unless there are other clues – for example stored diagnostic codes in the computer memory consistent with the above.
If I suspected a problem with the ECTS on my Corolla, the first thing I’d do, I’d remove the part and test it in a pan of hot water with an ohm meter. I’d do a two point test, one at ambient temperature, and one at 180 degrees F. On my car anyway that part is a thermistor that screws into the cooling jacket, a device that changes resistance as a function of temperature. The calibration chart to compare to is provided in the shop manual. The ECM measures the resistance and by that knows the coolant temperature.
Best of luck.
kbsanders describes what seems to me a sticking variable valve timing gear. When sticking the engine will idle very rough or stall. There is a bulletin for this but it states fault P1349 should be present.
With either vehicle when it stalls and won’t start will they restart with the throttle open?
Thanks @GeorgeSanJose & @Nevada_545. When the car does restart after 10 minutes, I smell a lot of fuel, which indicates engine flooding. I don’t understand the lack of codes.
Will the sticking variable valve timing gear also explain why it starts 10 minutes after stalling & smell of fuel?