1991 Stalling Intermittantly

December 16, 2004

My girl friend is the proud owner of a 1991 camry with around 204,500miles on it. Hasnt had anything asside from maintence and dammage repair done to it thus far.

anyways since it has gotten cold here in michigan the car has developed a nice stalling problem. The problem when it occurs starts after a few minutes of driving. The car will idle fine, although one time I think it was missing. However despite idling ok, it will stall when you get into the throttle to leave a stop light...etc. It seems to occur around a certain throttle range. The car can be kept from stalling out if you punch the gas and catch it. After a few miles of driving the problem will go away. The car overall seems to run great, although it sometimes seems to have hesitation at what seems like that throttle range it stalls. Im not sure about this as it seems to be a chataristic of this car and more of a lack of power than anything. (I am used to driving big american torquey cars)...

My thoughts are that it could be the ignition system and the number of failures listed on this forum for these cars seems to point in that direction. However becuase of the throttle range part of the problem I think that it could also be the airflow meter or TPS. I am going to look at the car more in depth soon, but I am just wondering if anyone had seen a problem like this before.

Thanks

December 30, 2004

the problem...at leat seems to be that the thermostat was sticking open. This caused the car to run cold, but was not noticed. Anyways my understanding of engines and so on leads me to this explaination....(i in no way claim it to be 100% fact!)

The thermostat was causing the engine to run cold, but it is just the coolant that is cold. Many parts of the engine will still warm up to some extent, so that leaves the computer thinking that the engine is warming up as usual and is running the engine accordingly. However not all the the engine is at the temperatures that would be normal for a engine warming up so the engine was in a different state than would be normal. So this was somehow causing the car to stall.

Anyways as i said the thermostat has been replaced and the problem seems to have gone away.

January 16, 2005

the problem...at leat seems to be that the thermostat was sticking open. This caused the car to run cold, but was not noticed. Anyways my understanding of engines and so on leads me to this explaination....(i in no way claim it to be 100% fact!)
The thermostat was causing the engine to run cold, but it is just the coolant that is cold. Many parts of the engine will still warm up to some extent, so that leaves the computer thinking that the engine is warming up as usual and is running the engine accordingly. However not all the the engine is at the temperatures that would be normal for a engine warming up so the engine was in a different state than would be normal. So this was somehow causing the car to stall.
Anyways as i said the thermostat has been replaced and the problem seems to have gone away.
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I take that back....the car is still stalling. I suspect its something to do with the ignition system. The problem went away for awhile because its been really cold out here. So its been dry out and therefor there has been no problem. The problem still starts after the car has a chance to warm up nearly all the way when its wet. If you drive the car for awhile longer the problem goes away. I assume becuase whatever is damp dries out. Anyways the GF has bought a 2000 Honda Prelude and will not be fixing the car. It still got us to the dealership and back and I am certain the camry has many miles to go if someone were to fix this problem and drive it. Miles are now around 206,500miles