Hello, First time poster here.

I am trying to troubleshoot a problem with my retired mother's 98 4 Cyl Camry that the dealer can't seem to diagnose because it will not present the problem while it is in their posession. I hope you can help.

The problem:

After short periods of high speed (65-70mph), long distance (40 miles or more) driving; when coming to a stop the engine will not hold an idle. It will have a very low RPM surge and die. After that it will have a hard time starting back up for a few long cranks. Then you have to rev the engine to keep it running. After a short period it will return to a normal idle and drive fine as before. A new twist today happend to me today while I was driving her; all the symptoms as above, but the brake booster did not seem to be working, as the brakes needed extra pressure. This was very unexpected and freaked ME out, and I would hate to have it happen while my elderly mom is driving, let alone the stalling issue.

60K miles, and she always does what the dealer tells her to do as far as service. I believe it just had the 60K maintainence. Based on the symptoms, I would guess an oxygen sensor as I dont think they have ever been replaced. (How many are there?) Or possibly the brake booster, although I don't know the mechanics as how this would manifest the problem.

An suggestions? Thanks!

 

A bad brake booster could be the culprit. Ive herd to look for crank sensors with the problem youve described. 1st of all check and see if theres any dummy lights on.. Check engine light?

 

No CEL. Any idea what parts and labor are on the crank sensor?

 

Bump, Any other thoughts on this?

 

The sensor cost im not sure of. It should only take a hrs labor time maybe two at most. But it all depends. On some jobs there are certain amount of hours the quote you for. It might say it takes 4 hrs of labor. But only takes 20mins. So shop around for the best bang for your buck. Or go buy a sensor and have a handy mechanic you know do the work

 

first off if ur crank sensor was bad it would not start period ur crank sensor does on thing determins where #1 cyl is on the compression stroke if u have no out put signal then the veh has no clue when to fire.

no their is no problem with ur o2 sensor if u dont have a cel .if u have a o2 problem u WILL have a cel.

as for the problem imo u have a iac problem (idle air control)
located internall of the throttal body and usually can be fixed with a simple tb clean. the iac directly controls ur idle speen and its common for them to stop up with gunk so when ur coming to a stop the iac motor cannot adj fast enough while u are decelerating due to being clogged up then u get the stall condition followed by a hard start due to the iac not being in the correct position causing a rich air/fuel mix then is cleared up after driving a short distance as for the hard brake pedal, this was most likely due to the engine at a severly low idle condition right befor the stall occured cauing a low manifold vacume and ur brake boster gets its power from manifold vacume. so imo u dont have a booster problem either. hope this helps.

 

This sounds like sound logic. Is the IAC what they call in the Ford world a MAF (mass airflow sensor)? Can I just clean it using electrical contact cleaner? Where exactly is it located and what does it look like? In my Ford it is just a couple strips of wire in the TB housing. Thanks for the input.

 

no toyotas use maf also the iac motor is bolted to ur tb if u want to clean it take off ur intake hose off of ur tb and hold open the butterfly then spry some tb cleaner in it with the engine not running. u will see black carbon in their get all of that out also their is a hole on the inside of the tb on the bottom make sure u spry down in it well. then reassemble and rev it a few times till it burns all of it out. then u should be good to go .

 

i agree with toyota tech, my second guess would be the egr

 

I took it to my mom's dealer today with your suggestions. They gave me a choice of a new IAC motor or an induction cleaning. I went with the induction cleaning as they assured me that this included cleaning the IAC. Hopefully all will be cleaned out.