2000 camry, 70k miles with regular maintenance. Last saturday and sunday, the car stopped after 5-6 min with the rpm dropped to 100~200 range. No hesitation on starting, idles very well, almost 30mpg in highway and 25-26 mpg on daily driving.
Had the exact same problem 6 months back, took it to a toyota dealer. He replaced o2 sensor based on check engine light, ran for a week. Car stopped afer a week, this time went with another dealer, he replaced spark plugs and thermostat and antifreeze. Ran for 6 months and now the same problem again. Now they are saying it could be an EGR valve, temp sensor or Fuel pump and need to replace them.

There is no check engine light this time, so no idea what could be the problem. If I give full throttle during the rpm drop, the car runs very rough. If I let go the gas, it stops, loosing power steering and brake. Wife is scared to drive it now. Since sunday, car is running smoothly again, no stops so far, but I am concerned when the car is going to stop.
Please help.....

Thanks
john

 

What happens after the idle drops or engine dies? Does the engine once again run normally?

 

Toyomoho, Thank you for youe reply.

Engine stops as soon as you move the car with rpm dropping. This same cycle happens over and over. There is no hesitation to start her back up but as soon as you press the gas pedal, the rpm drops and engine dies. This behavior was consistent. However 2-3 times, the engine died during idling. ie I start her up and sat there and after 20-30 sec rpm dropped and engine died. All these times, no check engine light came on. During last weekend the engine died close to 10 times within 10 minutes from the cold start.

I am eagerly waiting for your reply.

 

V6 or 4 cylinder?

As stated, when the engine is having trouble it will die if you give it gas pedal, die after idling for a few minutes.

Has the engine ever died when someone was driving it say it speeds above 15 mph, hwy speeds. Does the engine have power when working normally (as in not running out of fuel).

Do these issues occur only at idle?

If the engine is hot do you still have problems?

 

check the egr valve

 

Engine is a V4, 70k miles

Engine never died in its 10 year service. It never felt loss of power or anyother issues including any check engine light. This odd behaviour (drop of rpm and die) sometimes occured while the car was in idle and sometimes it was on move. In all cases, the engine will die within 10 min of start.
This happens when then engine is hot or cold (ie last weekend the first time it happened the engine was cold. I drove it back home and let it sit for an hour and tried starting. It started back and died while idling within 10 min. The temp gague was showing a hot engine at that time.

My wife reminded me one thing thoug. Both last weekend and almost 6-7 months back incidents, both time car was outside in the driveway baking in the 100 degree heat. Not sure that has anything to do with it or not.

This weekend i didn't start the engine to see if I am losing fuel pressure as my friends suggested, but today it ran without any issues.

Thank you for your email
John

 

Wife noted one more thing today morning. There is a small noise coming from the driver side of the engine, kind of like a squeeling noise. It is not that loud and it goes away after couple of minutes of start. I've heard this noise (in much louder) from other cars. To me this seems like a bearing is rubbing kind of noise, kind of similar to the brake worn noise. (hard to discribe a noise ). It is coming from the diver side and from the mid to bottom of the engine and close to the back of the engine. I couldn't hear anything from the passenger side.
Friend suggested a timing belt is going bad. Timing belt was never changed, dealer suggested it only needs a replacement at 100K miles eventhough the car is almost 11 years old.

What do you guys think?
Appreciate all your answers.

 

I am going to take the egr valve out and clean it this weekend. Will report back the valve condition next week.

 

also need to check the fuel pump pressure and another thing I would do is to check the engine trouble codes. The codes you should always check first they usually tell you exactly what the issue is.

 

There are no check engine lights on when this happened. I did check the code (even without the light) and it obd scanner displayed "Pass".