1990 camry Issue... help??
 

Hi everyone,

I am new here I found this forum while trying to research a camry problem.

Ok, hopefully someone can give me an idea of what may have happened. Let me give some background, I am a disabled vet, my wife owns a small cleaning business, we barely make ends meet here. She needed another vehicle and since we are not rolling in money or financially able we could not opt for the shiny new car with the large payments. She has saved every penny that she could for the last 2 years and had 1900 bucks. We found a 1990 camry in the local paper for 1700 went last night to look at it, the car was in great shape with no outward appearences of anything that may be a problem. it had 116K and I looked it over good. No leaks everything seemed to work fine. took it for a drive it was nice and solid throughout. good.

Paid the 1700.00 and drove off, 5 miles down the road... I noticed the "lights" light come on... then 10 seconds later it was the "brake" light a few seconds after that it was the "battery" light, then the whole dash lit up like a christmas tree.. the transmission started shifting down and up on its own.. with no input from me, you could see the gear position indicator lights on the dash flickering and lighting on and off.. at one point my wife told me that she could see the "back up" lights come on when she was behind me. After the tranny got a mind of its own, the temp gauge dropped to nothing.. a zero reading, as I was pulling off the shoulder the engine quit.. died... would crank but not start.
This whole episode lasted about 2 minutes, seems like some sort of cascading electrical failure. My wife needless to say is very upset she paid for a "car" that is now dead. I feel horrible about it and it hurts me to see her so upset. I should have really run it out harder I guess... more than a 10 mile drive around the outskirts of the town.

I am not mechanically dumb... as a matter of fact I have been wrenching for many years... but this type of electrical problem is NOT my forte'.

Have any of you seen this type of thing before?.. have any suggestions as to where to start? Any input would be greatly appreciated, Thanx!

RE: 1990 camry Issue... help??
 

is the battery ok...how about the alternator...is your check engine light on when cranking..??

RE: 1990 camry Issue... help??
 

Hey toyo... yes the batt. is fine. I found the problem... seems the ignitor decided to fail at that particular time, when it went it must have sent some voltage spikes through the system causing everything to act stupid.

I replaced it yesterday and she started right up. I had to replace a fuse also for the interior systems.. it must have "popped" it when it spiked.

At this time it is running fine, the ignitor is the "box" beside the battery.. in case anyone else has this "problem" i have a good friend who is the one who steered me in that direction, he has seen it before and "fixed" many of them. he said it was a common failing in those years and when replaced with the newer part it should last longer than the car. He said they have been upgraded several times since then.

i was told it normally went out at 60 - 120K.. there ya have it. thanks for the response, I will keep the forum in favorites now and use it regular. Thanks again. REX