I guess I was hoping that it might be a clearer problem, but I can see that it probably isn’t. I think I’ll have to get my son to take it over to the Toyota dealer (different from the one up here that did not help) and have them call me before they do anything. They can try to change plugs, reset the CEL and maybe one of their guys will be able to see what is wrong. It complicates things since he has the car 5 hours from me. Thanks for your advice. Thank you.
If the car were mine I’d stick another spark plug in the weak cylinder and see what happens.
If that doesn’t make any difference you might consider using stethoscope or long handled screwdriver to listen to the injector on that weak cylinder while someone cranks the engine over. You should hear it clicking.
Thanks for the idea. When I get the car in front of me, I’ll try it.
Thank you.
you can try this, since you got the mas air and air filter wet. change the filter, get a can of maf or mas cleaner, take out you maf air sensor and clean it with the spray follow the directions, unplug the batt. for an hr. and turn the key on for 10 mins. to drian it. do this first before cleaning the mas air sensor. after the work is done take it for a drive. the cel lights won’t go off for a while. but if u do this and there is no change, than go and have your mas air tested, you might need a new one.
Thank you. I’ll try this, too. I appreciate your help.
I thought I’d let everyone who tried to help know what was wrong with the car. After I put the new heater hoses on, some of the vacuum lines had come off. I must have crossed one up and this made it idle poorly. It is running great now. Thank you for all of your help.
chenderson719, have you made any progress with your Matrix? My wife loves her 2003 Matrix that we bought four months ago. She wanted a remote starter installed, so I took her car to the Toyota dealership where the vehicle was purchased. After the installation (oil change, complimentary carwash), It immediately started to idle rough ( before we left the dealership parking lot) but when I mentioned this to the service department rep he replied “It’s a four cylinder car, they all run that way”. No, it ran very smoothly before. Thanks for your information, I will take her Matrix to another Toyota dealership.
The car is fixed now. We took it to a dealer in Gainesville and they discovered that I had put the vacuum hoses in the wrong place. I had changed the heater hoses and the vacuum lines came off and I inadvertently crossed it up. The car runs great now that it is fixed. They found it right away as opposed to the other dealer. When you deal with ignition, I guess go back to the basics by checking the vacuum hoses. It sounds like that might actually be what is wrong. Good luck.