Hola!

I have owned my 98 Toyota Camry since 2001 and was the second owner. It has the 4 cylinder engine with only 150,000 miles on it. This car has been troublefree and has been one of the best cars I have ever owned. Recently, it has started acting up though. The check engine light came on so I ran the diagnostics on it and it came up with P0401 (If I recall right). I then replaced the air intake hose because it was deteriorating. I thought that pieces of that probably were causing a clog so attempted to clean my egr valve but had no luck because the engine light was still on (even after reset) and it didn't seem to do anything.

I became terribly busy and had to stop there and had to drive the car as it was for a couple of months. Now, just recently, the problem seems to have gotten worse (as expected). The car stutters after it first starts, at low speeds and during stop and go. I gave the car a tuneup and changed out all the fluids (transmission, oil, coolant, etc) along with a fuel treatment additive but as expected it did nothing.

I have time again (was working 60+ hours & night class) so want to continue where I left off with the egr valve. What order should I go when attempting to diagnose or fix this? What could be the most likely culprit? Is there anything else that could be causing this or am I on the right track?

Thnx,

~from a newbie who's dad was a certified ASE master mechanic but was so sick of fixing cars for a living that he refuses to talk or look at cars so I have been entirely self taught~

 

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I thought I would give an update to my Camry problems for those in need of help. I also was in error when I previously said I gave it a tuneup. I meant a year earlier when I first started working on it, I had a tuneup done by a mechanic off of Rainier Avenue in Seattle.

Anyways...

I took off my egr valve and air intake and they were pretty dirty. I cleaned my air intake the best I could, although I know I could have cleaned it better. The egr valve was so rusted and gunked that I figured that I would just replace it rather than cleaning it. I was able to get the part at cost from a mechanic friend so it was no biggie. I also rechecked the codes and this time had numerous codes including cylinder misfires. I figured that the other codes were caused by the insufficient flow egr problem, especially since I knew that it had recently had a tuneup (after the problem originally began) and it did nothing for it.

After replacing the egr valve and placing the air intake back on it worked alot better (it ran) but it still stuttered. I decided that I should also try to clean all tubes and passageways and went the easy route using Seafoam. I accidentally sucked too much in, but just took out my plugs and let it spew out as I cranked it a couple times. No biggie. After the Seafoam the car ran like new again. The code disappeared and it was nice.

During the Seafoam incident I noticed that my spark plugs looked decrepidly old which was weird because I just paid a shop to give it a tuneup less than a year earlier. I decided that I would give it a tuneup myself when i had time.

The next day my car started stuttering again so I checked the codes and I got the p0401 again! I then took the crappy plug wires and spark plugs out and put in new NGK plug wires and NGK idium spark plugs. I fired it up and the check engine light disappeared and it is running smooth again. One thing to note, when I took out the 4th spark plug I noticed it was all oiled up and covered in oil.

If anything new happens I will update it but for now, it seems that it is all good. Except I now need to give the Camry an oil change! It also seems that I will be working on my car solely by myself, especially after having paid a certified shop to give it a tuneup which was questionable. Oh by the way, I found one of my old plug wires in the engine compartment during all this as well.

 

Good job on the diagnosis and repairs! Perhaps you should continue to do your own repairs, it appears you can do a better job the shop.

Maybe keeping the old plug wire with the engine was the shops way of returning the old parts.

The oil on the plug may be due to a leaking spark plug tube seal with the head, or the tube gasket on the valve cover.

If the seal at the head is leaking, the tube can be removed. High temp silicone seal can then be applied to the mating surfaces. On older engines the tubes screwed into place making removal pretty easy. Sometime later Toyota changed to pressed in tubes which are harder to remove.