Have I got the compendium of issues....

I am a noob to TN and have a 98 4 cylinder AT, with 123k on it. I bought it at 121k and couldnt be happier with the previous owner because she kept just about every receipt for the car including purchasing papers.

I am going to be moving to florida in the next 3 weeks and need to take care of my camry issues before i am 1000 miles away from any of my tools. The problems are as follows:

1. It is extremely hot and humid in florida especially when im going to be going there and i believe i am having some minor (hopefully) AC issues. When i turn the AC on the car makes a whinning sound especially on acceleration and i believe it to be coming from the compressor, I checked the sight glass and it goes between totally clear and a milky smokey opaque color. I thought it was due to not enough refrig being in the system so I put more in, then the compressor constantly clicked on and off and once in awhile made a rubbing sound. According to my gauge it was a lil above 50psi at 90 degrees F outside, so i released some refrig (r134?) and now its back to where it was with the whinning sound and milky color. My question is will i need to replace the compressor soon? or is there anything i can do to remedy it? or is this just natural for a 98 camry with a 4 cylinder engine? on top of that will it drag down my MPG significantly?

2. I checked my transmission fluid and it doesnt smell burnt but it is kinda brown in color. I dont think the previous owner has done any towing or drove it under harsh conditions, so she hadnt needed to do any transmission work before i got it. Should I drain and refill the tranny? and if so does anyone know a way to DIY flush and completely refill the tranny? This is my first car i ever bought that i will be planning on keeping for more than a few years so i want to make sure that i keep babying it and see it through to at least 200k.

3. I believe i need to replace the front driver side door lock actuator because the door lock will not respond to clicking of the remote or the automatic door locks from inside, i checked the connection rods and they do not budge, does anyone know where i can find a used one or something for relatively inexpensive?

I know this is alotta questions but only one more!

4. the trunk lever on the driver side front seat doesnt want to open the trunk, is this a common problem? I move the latch up and down and can hear movement in the trunk when i have the back seats down but it just wont open, the gas cover lever works fine and i imagine it runs the same track as the trunk line, could there be some form of tension problem? any help would be appreciated.

I know some of this questions are probably only unique to my car but any help would be appreciated, but if you have no idea just go ahead and give me a bump anyways since im new!

Thanks in advance[/align]

 

1. you described the A.C. sound as a whinning. Could it be mroe of a squeel? If so it's probably just a bad or loose belt (pretty simple or inexpensive repair). If it is more of a whine or groaning type noise and you only hear it with the A.C. on then it would be either a compressor clutch problem or a problem with the compressor itself like the rear bearing of the compressor (that will be pricey). I would of course recomend you checking the belt by seeing how much slack it has. Another way is with the engine running and the A.C. on spray a little bit of water on the belt around the A.C. compressor and see if it starts getting really noisy. If it does you can bank on it needing belt work.

2. I'd suggest having a comperable garrage flush AND service the transmission so the filter and 90% of the fluid is changed. it's expensive but not nearly as much as replacing the transmission.

3. Be careful of what it needs. this year camry is very common to have wiring problems where the drivers door opens. Within that rubber covering the wires between the door and the door jam the wires tend to crack from so much use opening and closeing the door. being the mileage it has I'd check into that first. try wiggleing that part of the wiring harness and see if you can get the lock to work and check for the operation of everything else in that door like the stereo speaker, power windows etc. and check all of the operations while you wiggle that section of wiring. If you don't think it's and it turns out you DO need an actuator that's not a part I would recomend getting used but good luck either way with that.

4. does the trunk open with the key from outside? If not then you have a trunk latch problem not a cable. Even if it does open you still may have a latch problem. I'm running into a problem with my latch right now actually but its intermittent and hasn't acted up in a while. It's easy enough to see if the cable is doing its job. just pop the carpet off from the under side of the trunk lid and shine a flash light at the latch mechanizm and have someone work the release lever and see if stuff if the cable is retracting as it should. If so, replace the latch, if not obviously you got a cable problem and you'll need to remove the lower rear seat and the drivers seat to attack that.

post back with any results and good luck.