I didn't think there was an idle setting but I thought I should ask.

I may be using the wrong terminology for timing. When I installed the new timing belt, I matched the little round timing mark in the cam housing with the hole in the cam pulley. When I put a probe through the hole it was really close but not exact. It couldn't be more than an eighth degree off, if that much. The probe easily touched the round mark but didn't hit exactly in the middle. I tried redoing it with the idlers, belt, crank, cam, etc. at least six times and I couldn't get it to hit the mark exactly. Not knowing how sensitive that setting is, I've worried that the timing wasn't EXACT and the car isn't quite right on. I figured (rationalized) that a pro mechanic couldn't be spending hours redoing that belt setting half a dozen times either or he'd go broke so I put it back together and went with it.

BTW, the engine has started to run a little smoother at idle while in gear. I didn't do anything to make that happen.

 

This car continues to amaze me. At anything past idle, it runs flawlessly. For a car with 271k miles, it's great. It's quiet, smooth and gets excellent gas mileage. It leaks oil pretty badly but doesn't appear to burn any out the tailpipe. I'm working on the oil leak as a separate issue.

But the rough idle problem persists and seems a little worse. It is worse when it is cold outside. Now that the weather is warmer, it isn't as rough but still not good. If you take the car out of Drive the idle smooths out to nearly normal. When searching online about idle concerns, the symptoms that include idle hunting, etc. don't really fit. Nevertheless it is annoying but the car is definitely worth fixing. When I went back over this thread, I think what was said about the EGR and other efforts to correct it are still valid. One thing I didn't include re: the IAC is it was new but not a Genuine Toyota part. I've been having more problems with parts that aren't factory on all my cars and this may be another example. I hate throwing parts at a problem but does anyone have a history of a non-factory IAC causing something like this?

Something else I've found out is this car does in fact have an idle RPM setting. It's near the intake manifold on the side of the engine and it changes the static setting of the throttle cable. I tried moving RPM up a little and it improved the roughness but you can't change it much without the car creeping forward.

 

Does this engine still have a distributor?

After aligning the cam hole with notch. did you rotate the engine two times CW and check the cam and crank marks again to make sure they were still correct?

EGR valve should be closed at idle.

You looking into the ETC sensor?

What was the idle speed before resetting cable? Did the idle speed pick up when the A/C compressor operated?

Any vacuum leaks?

 

Per above ...

 

ETC = ECT.

What parts have been changed? Plugs, plug wires?

How is the MPG?

Your idle RPM is OK.

 

1. Plugs and wires are not new but appear to be good.
2. MPG has been good. The car is driven mostly locally with a little freeway. It gets around 26-28 MPG.
3. Idle is around 800 RPM in gear.

A master mechanic friend who now lives in CA is here visiting his daughter's family. He did his various tests and feels the problem is motor mounts which are currently not Genuine Toyota. We are going to replace them with Genuine this week. Hopefully that solves the problem since the price tag was $490. Yikes!

 

MPG and RPM are good.

Some mounts are better then others.

Post back with your results.

 

Not sure anything is better than Genuine Toyota for most every part on our cars. Maybe some consumables can be bought that are better (e.g. wiper blades). It comes down to cost and how long you own it. I've learned my lesson on that point. I like keeping cars for a long time. They become part of the family. It's also a fun challenge to keep it running. There's also the benefit of knowing a car well and how it works. I enjoy working on cars but I'm not really happy about redoing things that would have lasted longer if I used Genuine. The original mounts lasted nearly two hundred thousands miles. The Chinese parts? Not so much.

In many cases, that is a false economy. I've got some Scottish blood which means I'm frugal. But going back and re-fixing things is a waste.