Author Topic: Car Trouble... At what point do you take it to the shop.  (Read 2945 times)

Nyarlathotep

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Car Trouble... At what point do you take it to the shop.
« on: November 16, 2014, 04:21:43 PM »
Good afternoon mustachians,

So the past few weeks my wife and I have been plagued with problem with our beloved 97' RAV4. The problem was it does not idle well while in gear, and accelerating is a real problem. At first I figured it was a fuel problem so I started from the top, checked and replaced the plugs, cleaned out the throttle body, changed the fuel filter and finally changed the fuel pump... and nothing same problems. 


After the long hours and the frustration of not knowing what to do at this point I feel as though after the good college try has been given it is time to take it to a local mechanic...

The silver lining is everything that I have done would have needed to be done sometime in the future and I got to learn a thing or two along the way.

So my question to you all is at what point to you get a professional involved?

Spork

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Re: Car Trouble... At what point do you take it to the shop.
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2014, 04:29:14 PM »
The short answer is: when your life can't handle it.    If you have to get to work or the store or wherever... and you're stuck...  You sort of have to give in.

One possibility:  I know my Matrix had similar issues as you describe and there was a known issue with the intake manifold gasket leaking.   It was about a $3 part and 30 minutes to swap it out.

Other (wild ass) guesses: MAF bad or dirty.  (I wasn't sure if cleaning the throttle body included that.)  Bad O2 sensors?  (I wouldn't go replacing these without knowing they were bad.)

Is it throwing any codes?

Nyarlathotep

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Re: Car Trouble... At what point do you take it to the shop.
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2014, 04:50:39 PM »
The short answer is: when your life can't handle it.    If you have to get to work or the store or wherever... and you're stuck...  You sort of have to give in.

One possibility:  I know my Matrix had similar issues as you describe and there was a known issue with the intake manifold gasket leaking.   It was about a $3 part and 30 minutes to swap it out.

Other (wild ass) guesses: MAF bad or dirty.  (I wasn't sure if cleaning the throttle body included that.)  Bad O2 sensors?  (I wouldn't go replacing these without knowing they were bad.)

Is it throwing any codes?

It was throwing up some miss fire sort of miss fire codes in the beginning but after all I have done to it the CEL hasn't come on yet but it is still missing and all the problems are still pretty much the same.

I appreciate your short answer... It has kind of gotten to that point. 

southern granny

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Re: Car Trouble... At what point do you take it to the shop.
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2014, 05:34:57 PM »
Another inexpensive thing to try would be fuel system cleaner.  Our favorite is "Seafoam".  Sometimes its practically a miracle worker.

Spork

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Re: Car Trouble... At what point do you take it to the shop.
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2014, 09:08:29 PM »
The short answer is: when your life can't handle it.    If you have to get to work or the store or wherever... and you're stuck...  You sort of have to give in.

One possibility:  I know my Matrix had similar issues as you describe and there was a known issue with the intake manifold gasket leaking.   It was about a $3 part and 30 minutes to swap it out.

Other (wild ass) guesses: MAF bad or dirty.  (I wasn't sure if cleaning the throttle body included that.)  Bad O2 sensors?  (I wouldn't go replacing these without knowing they were bad.)

Is it throwing any codes?

It was throwing up some miss fire sort of miss fire codes in the beginning but after all I have done to it the CEL hasn't come on yet but it is still missing and all the problems are still pretty much the same.

I appreciate your short answer... It has kind of gotten to that point.

When I was debugging mine... it would be 3 weeks or so before the CEL would re-light.  Mine was intermittent -- temperature and humidity dependent.