2001 Rav4 High Idle

[Morphy]

Hi Guys and Gals.

Just recently bought a 2001 Rav4 GXS as a second car for mountain biking and as a run around.

Its had 1 owner from new (an 89 year old gent) its been fully serviced at Toyota throughout its life and has covered 66k Miles.

I've had it now a little over a week and its all great apart from the fact it idles high at start up.

Now being May its not exactly cold out but when I start the engine it idles at over 2k rpm until the engine warms up. its got the neighbours looking out the window to see who is over revving their car. LOL.

It's fine after a few mins and idles at 650 or so all nice an quiet. So it seems the IAC must be working correctly but I don't know why its as high as that. 1400 rpm would be more than enough.

Just the other day I didn't wait for it to warm up and just drove off but just down the road the lolleypop lady was crossing some children and I stopped with the car revving at 2 - 2.2k revs. SHe was looking at me strange.

I would appreciate any comments as to what I should do. Was hoping not to have to go spending on garage repairs.

Cheers

Morphy

[the fox]

Try cleaning throttle housing inside, I have seen this problem, twice before it was caused by a dirty housing and once the Mass air sensor was very dirty, it lives in the air filter, if you put a code reader on it may have stored a fault, if you google your year etc, I think you can short out a connection and count flashes of the MIL fault code light, good luck...sound something simple

[ANNAWONG]

It sounds about right to me!

I have a 2001 GX Auto and mine is just like that, it's not a problem.

Whern you come up to your lollypop lady, just leave it in gear. it won't rev it's nuts off, nor give her the frights.......

[Morphy]

Thanks both for your feedback.

I have since changed the air filter but there was nothing else i felt comfortable tackling. I did not want to attempt to take anything apart. Besides its initial high idle it runs like a dream so don't want to upset anything.

Loving it so far. So much so that my £43k xc60 has not come out of my garage since.

[Snowdor]

Hi Morphy,

I queried this with my local garage. Basically he said it is effectively like having a choke on start up (back in the old days), but now cars don't need them as the rev's drop when the engine reaches normal operating temperature, and to be honest that's exactly what happens on mine!

Once it's warm it drops below 1000 rpm.

Hope that helps.

[Morphy]

Thanks

I feel better now it seems is More common and normal than i thought.

It revs around 2k for the first minute or so then drops to around 1400. It then drops to about 1000 after another minute. It then idles at around 650.

After driving it will restart and idle again at around 650 but if left for the engine to become cold (3 or 4 hrs) it will idle high again.

I would think 1400 rpm would be sufficient to act like a choke as 2k does seem and sound excessive.

[RavUser]

If it makes you feel any better,

My 2001 2.0 VVTI does exactly the same, with exactly the same speed reductions through warm up.

I have cleaned the IACV (and fitted new gaskets), and the throttle body (and fitted new gaskets), and the air sensor. (All of which never needed cleaning).

When I purchased mine just over a year ago with 37000 miles on it and full Toyota service history, I thought, as you that 2K rpm was bit high for fast cold idle but hay ho !!!!

Car runs like a dream and always has and I have put another 7000 miles on it now, and I just live with it ...................

Just one of Toyotas little mysteries ................

[AndyFahyUK]

Thanks to your knowledge shared here I went through and fixed my Uncles Rav4 VVTi and it was sat idle on the drive for over 12 months.

Upon cold startup the RPM was ~1400 then steadily increased over the next 10 minutes to ~2500.

It never reduced and the engine got quite hot.

I checked the IACV and cleaned it. No change.

I cleaned the throttle body with the suitable spray, no change.

Finally stripped off the throttle body and removed and cleaned the Throttle Idle control valve, it was sticking when trying to manually rotate it. I could feel the gunk preventing it from working properly.

Once that was cleaned and all replaced the idle was initially high until the system settled down

It now idles at ~750-800 RPM nicely.

 

Thanks for all the advice, Andy