My '89 Camry is having issues running when it rains or snows. It starts and will sit at idle, but as soon as you put it into drive or reverse it sputters and eventually dies. This seems to only happen after it rains or snows. I have noticed that when it isn't raining or snowing and you put it into drive that the RPMs drop fairly significantly, however not enough to stall out. At first I thought it was a crack in the distributor cap, but I replaced it and that did not fix the problem. Any suggestions about what could be wrong? Could it be the TPS? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

TPS often gets clogged on these and can cause the symptoms you describe.
Remove the air intake hose to expose the throttle body and spray some throttle body cleaner down into the hole at the bottom of the throttle body.
May as well clean the butterfly valve and clean the throttle body in general while you're at it. I remove the vacuum lines one at a time and spray some cleaner down through those as well to make sure they are all cleared out.

Wipe it down good and let it sit for a few to evaporate the cleaner.
It will act flooded at first but should start right up.

Hope that solves your problem, best of luck.

 

I appreciate the help! I will try that in the morning. Would the problem be worse in the cold/snow/rain?

 

Well, the issue with Rain, Cold, Snow sounds more like an electrical problem, you're right about that. Without knowing the general condition of your car it's a bit of a shot in the dark for me. Have you tuned the car up lately, checked the timing, plugs, wires (view plug wires at night in the dark to be sure they are not grounding out anywhere)? Adjusted the idle per the manual. Checked to see that the PCV is clean and working? Clean air cleaner? Visually inspect all electrical connections, especially to TPS, mass air flow sensor and other sensors. Speaking of which, you may need to get some mass air flow sensor cleaner and follow the instructions on the can, they do get dirty and cause problems.

Might want to check for vacuum leaks by carefully (lightly) spraying some carb cleaner at suspect vacuum connections (I always like to have a fire extinguisher handy when doing this) and look for any deteriorating (cracked) vacuum lines. (If you have a vacuum leak the engine rpms will change when subjected to the carb cleaner).

Keep us posted on what you find, try the above and if that doesn't do it, we'll try to help you figure out what's up.

Best of luck!