I have a 1985 Toyota MR2 and when I run the air and come to a stop the car dies. It is fine when driving. Not sure if it could be battery since I only drive it in the summer and not that often? Help
It’s unlikely to be the battery if the car starts right back up after stalling.
There are a lot of things that can cause this, especially on a car as old as a 1985. It could be your “Idle Air Control”, a vacuum leak due to an aged/cracked vacuum line, dirty fuel injectors, or it may just need a tune up, among other things.
When was the last time the car had a tune up with new spark plugs, ignition wires, distributor cap and rotor? (if your car uses one)
You could buy a couple of cans of Techron fuel system cleaner (not the cheap Gumout stuff) and run them through on a mostly empty tank and see if that helps, but I think you should start with a tune up if one hasn’t been done in years.
1985…Is it injected or carbureted? These cars can have an idle speed control solenoid that is supposed to kick up the idle speed when the A/C is on…See if that is working…
There should be something that increases the base idle with the added load.
On my older carbureted Fords they called it a ‘stepper motor’ or idle solenoid.
When you engaged the a/c it would change the zero position of the accelerator stop and when adjusted properly you barely noticed any increase in idle because it just compensated for the extra load.
There’s something like that not working on your Toyota.
I agree with Caddyman and ken green. There has to be an idle control motor or solenoid on this engine to increase idle when the AC is turned on.
I never considered that it would have an idle control motor or solenoid but that makes total sense because I can feel the overload when i come to a stop. I will check that out and let you guys know. I really appreciate the help as it’s been too hot to drive it lately without air.
Until you get it fixed, just switch off the AC when you stop, and turn it back on when you go.
If you need specific info on where to find what on your MR2 (yours is a generation before mine so I don’t really know much about it) talk to the guys on http://mr2oc.com - an excellent resource for owners of all flavors of MR2s.