well on my way home yesterday I bought a coil and threw it in later that night. engine started right up. I mean, hell, it hardley turned over once before it was running. now it pures smoother than ever and finally it looks like this neverending quest is over. There still is the posibility that the problem only fixed itself again temporarily but hopefully, the coil was the only problem. Hopefully You guys wont be hearing from me in another week or two like last time. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread, especially you Pedro. just having another person thinking about what the problem could be is motivating to keep working on it. Now I hope the camry community can benifit from my misery since this was so hard to locate.

 

There you go deanp, should've listened to lavalleemike way back on 5/24. Happy driving.

 

yeah, no kiddin. see, Im no stranger to backyard mechanics so after some diagnostic work, I usually just go out and buy the part that is most likely defective but this is the girleys car so I wanted to keep the guess and check to a minimum and since the coil appeared to check out fine, I wasnt in a hurry to get one on her bill. but yeah, hind sight, it would have saved me alot of time.

 

Parts stores love DIY'rs who re&re parts in an effort to diagnose problems. I guess now everytime there is a no start/no run there will be a run on coils.I've invested in a few test tools and I think the little KVtester I purchased would have determined bad coil pretty fast. It would have shown working output rather than relying on a static ohm test. The problem with, "do this it worked for me" is everyone is right,you just need to be able to pick which of their problems is also yours.[sm=smiley36.gif]

 

Gee, I didn't mean to sound like a smart-*** when I posted the other week. Sorry. What I meant was that a weak battery could still start the car sometimes, but drain down or short while running and not give enough current to allow the car to run properly. I am agreeing with pedro in that the coil is the most likely suspect. You have to remove the dist. to see it good enough. I have also seen the small "condenser" in the dist. just below the coil fail and cause a no run situation. They are not expensive, but only avai. at the dealer. OEM coils are the only ones that are any good. Hope you get it fixed soon.