Help !

[newwy]

Car: Carina E Automatic CD

Year: 1996

Mileage: 42,000

Full Toyota service history.

Condition: Immaculate.

Hi folks

I bought this stunning example about 6 weeks ago and it has been running great. I have only been using it an odd day here and there, as I still have my trusty old Corolla liftback for everyday use.

However, just yesterday, while driving the Carina it suddenly lost power and started to 'rumble' and stutter, although still driveable...hmmm.

Took it to a local and reliable garage and as soon as the mechanic jumped in the car he said, its only running on 3 cylinders.

He then proceeded to check all the plugs and the leads to the plugs etc. Finally coming up with the diagnosis of a blocked or faulty fuel injector on one of the cylinders......oh dear.

This morning when I started it it ran fine for 20 minutes, after stopping and then re-starting it, it started to run like a bag of farts agian and clearly was running on 3 cylinders gain.

Later on in the day, I again started the car from cold and it ran beautifully a short trip to pick up my daughter. Again on re-starting the car, it started to play up again.

Is the mechanics diagnosis correct and does anyone else have experiences of this problem???

My local mechanic guy said that he had never had to replace a Toyota fuel injector in all his years...it was apparantly a most unusual and rare occurance.

My faithful old 1992 Corolla which I have driven for 10 years and has done 175,000 virtual trouble free miles has never had any fuel injector problems, so how come this Carina after only 42,000 is giving me hassle???

The mechanic quoted a price of £100 per injector!!!! Holy smoke... anyway, he put in a bottle of 'fuel injector cleaner' and siad that it might help clean any blockage, but so far it hasn't.

Anyone have any ideas and comments ??

Any advice gratefully received

Regards

Dave

[anchorman]

Car: Carina E Automatic CD

Year: 1996

Mileage: 42,000

Full Toyota service history.

Condition: Immaculate.

Hi folks

I bought this stunning example about 6 weeks ago and it has been running great. I have only been using it an odd day here and there, as I still have my trusty old Corolla liftback for everyday use.

However, just yesterday, while driving the Carina it suddenly lost power and started to 'rumble' and stutter, although still driveable...hmmm.

Took it to a local and reliable garage and as soon as the mechanic jumped in the car he said, its only running on 3 cylinders.

He then proceeded to check all the plugs and the leads to the plugs etc. Finally coming up with the diagnosis of a blocked or faulty fuel injector on one of the cylinders......oh dear.

This morning when I started it it ran fine for 20 minutes, after stopping and then re-starting it, it started to run like a bag of farts agian and clearly was running on 3 cylinders gain.

Later on in the day, I again started the car from cold and it ran beautifully a short trip to pick up my daughter. Again on re-starting the car, it started to play up again.

Is the mechanics diagnosis correct and does anyone else have experiences of this problem???

My local mechanic guy said that he had never had to replace a Toyota fuel injector in all his years...it was apparantly a most unusual and rare occurance.

My faithful old 1992 Corolla which I have driven for 10 years and has done 175,000 virtual trouble free miles has never had any fuel injector problems, so how come this Carina after only 42,000 is giving me hassle???

The mechanic quoted a price of £100 per injector!!!! Holy smoke... anyway, he put in a bottle of 'fuel injector cleaner' and siad that it might help clean any blockage, but so far it hasn't.

Anyone have any ideas and comments ??

Any advice gratefully received

Regards

Dave

Did the mechanic change the plugs? If not change them. You sometimes get one break down intermittently and it would be wise to take them out of the equation before you start getting in deep.

When it is running on 3 cylinders, have you identified which cylinder it is? This can be done by pulling each plug lead off in turn and checking which one doesn't make a difference. If you are concerned about getting a kick, pull the leads all off and rest them loosly on top of the plug first and just raise them of the plug in turn with a pair of insulated pliers.

If changing the plugs does not cure it then move the injector from the "ineffective" cylinder to another one. If the misfire goes with it then you have identified the injector is at fault without spending any money.

Good luck

PS Plug leads and coil packs rarely cause a problem so look at the above first.

[newwy]

Hi

Thanks for the good advice. I think I will get a set of new Platinum plugs and try them and see what happens. Also what you say about switching the injector to another one and see if it still mis-fires is a good idea.

Am I right in thinking that this is a rare problem ?? Considering the mileage on the Carina is only 42,000??

Thanks again for the good advice.

I will let you know how I get on.

Regards

Dave

[anchorman]

Hi

Thanks for the good advice. I think I will get a set of new Platinum plugs and try them and see what happens. Also what you say about switching the injector to another one and see if it still mis-fires is a good idea.

Am I right in thinking that this is a rare problem ?? Considering the mileage on the Carina is only 42,000??

Thanks again for the good advice.

I will let you know how I get on.

Regards

Dave

I have worked on a Corolla with a 1.4VVTI engine that did something similar but the miss was more intermittent. Injector cleaner sorted that out. Carinas are pretty bomb proof but 1.8's usually require a very expensive Lambda sensor when the mileage gets up a bit. You will get the engine check light on when that happens.

Cheers..........

[Hampo69]

On a slightly connected matter, I've just had the timing checked on my '92 Carina E Auto (<82,000miles), the mechanic said I had a small split in the distributor cap and this may eventually lead to the engine firing on 3 cylinders. Is there a cheap and reliable source for these kinds of things, or do I have to find one in a breakers or from Toyota?

[gazza1286]

A google search on "japanese car parts" will provide a few sources.

[Healing Hands]

Hi, Yes it is an injector problem. Identify which cylinder by pulling HT leads in turn or listen to the injectors when misfiring with a screwdriver or pref a stick. one end on the injector the other end on your ear. listen for regular ticking sound. One will sound different to the others. This is the faulty one. Yes it will work stop work again at random. Fuel injector cleaner will not work. Its an internal fault in the injector. Advise buy genuine.

C YA

[beto92]

The car does not have a cylinder problem. I you fix any of the cylinder the problem is not going to go away. If you had a bad cylinder you would have damaged the other cylinders and the car would not run!!!!

[Troy1]

Hello there, I have just joined this forum, specifically to reply to this thread about your carina problem.

I have a 94 Carina E GS 1.6 Petrol and am having the following symptoms:

When the engine has been running for about half an hour or so, No4 cylinder itermittanly stops firing.

This would lead to a loss of power and lumpy idle.

After this has happened, I took the spark out and it was wet, meaning petrol was getting in there, but not firing.

For now, I have swapped the plugs 1 and 4 and will wait for it to happen again.

If No1 now fails, then I know it is the plugs.

If no4 still fails then I will replace the leads and dis cap.

If no4 still fails after that, I will be taking the rail off and swapping the injectors over.

I will update and let you know the root cause when I find it if you like.

Or I would suggest that you follow the same diagnotic line as me.

[jpc4560]

did you buy dodgy petrol? E.G from a supermarket.

just a thought.

hth

[Troy1]

Just to update this, after I had swapped the plugs, the car still dropped down to 3 cylinders.

It was no4 again which means its ruled out the spark plugs.

Halfords then quoted my something stupid like between £60 and £140 pendant on the VIN for a set of HT Leads as they are unual ones due to the large resistors on them..... so I didn't buy any of them, but seen a set on eBay for £30 which is still a little over price in my opinion, but allot better.

Also, Halfords were doing a free bottle of Injector Clearner with their 10/40 oil, so got some of that and will see if that improves...

[Troy1]

Just to update again.

I have now swapped the sparks, swapped the HT leads and put a bottle of Injector cleaner through the car.

The result?

It now drops down to 2 cylinders :ffs:

Next on my list is to get a new distributor cap.

Seen some on eBay for under a tenner

I will find this fault...

[RossKirby]

Hi there,

I had exactly the same problem with my Carina E 1.6 last year. Now mine only fired on 3 when it was hot. Heres what to do.... run your car very hot so its firing on 3 cylinders, use a multimeter set to resistance, preferably autorange if you've got one, disconnect the wires to all four injectors (taking note of what cylinders they came off), test the resistance on the terminals of each injector. If I recall correctely it should be about 1.7mohms. You will discover that the offending injector has a very different reading to the others, it may be higher, it may be lower but it will certainly be inconsistant with the other 3. I did this myself, removed the faulty injector and replaced it with one from a breakers for £10.

This was after my local garage could not identify the fault and told me it was spark plugs as well! I can 99% guarantee this is your problem as I've heard of this fault several times before.

Hope this helps, please let me know. Good luck.

[minter1]

;) Hey folks.

Joined this site after aquiring a nice 1994 Carina E 1.6 after 15 yrs of hassle free motoring in my Civic ;)

First all was good-its soooo smooth-I'm on M6 every day!

Then came the 'doing 10 miles and running on 3 like a dog stuff'

I have basic knowledge, changed dissy cap, rotor arm, tested HT leads-I EVEN spent 6hrs changing fuel filter.....awkward Bas.....

No effect. Thanks to you guys I guessed injectors...but alas, no local garage would even touch it!!!

Took it to a local performance centre (it did look belting lined up next to type R's and Focus ST's lol) who have the best diagnosis gear.

Within 1 hr, tested, no:2 injector failed utterley. Other 3 serious flow trouble, but cleanable.

Motto? I paid for it! - but runs like new, and yes cheaper to go scrappy etc but this place only put in 'genuine' parts but to be honest-worth it for service I guess.

Cost? A staggering £250---£74 quid for Toyota injector, £28 quid each for others to be cleaned and tested, £65 quid for high end diagnosis, labour, VAT and full road and re-diagnosis tests.

To me? Now I can wap out of services on M6 and be hitting a ton (only 1.6) by end of slip Rd, and feel how it should run......Previously-would struggle up a slight incline........

Well worth it. Great car.

[k241]

Hi i have a toyota carina e 1.6 96 which from the sounds of it seems to be displaying similar characteristics as each of your cars.

A bit of History: I got this car off my Dad and it had run reliably as a family car for 10 years.The engine light had come on a year before i got the car and our local trusty mechanic had a look and couldnt find anything wrong and the cars running was not affected in the slightest so never bothered to get that checked with a diagnostic tool and it was assumed since that it is something very small that does not affect the cars runing.

Now I had a problem shortly after i got the car a year later where the car would loose power when it reached a certain temperature and rev very low in idle. This happened at more or less the half way mark on the temperature gauge but would be very intermittent and seem to happen more so on long journeys and especially idling in traffic.From the sound of it and from reading peoples posts it seems mine is going down to 3 cylinders also.

I got the car serviced at that time and this seemed to sort out the problem so i just assumed that it had just needed a

service.

Now over six months on this problem started to happen again so i again assumed considering the time frame and the mileage that a service was needed.So i have gotten that done recently including changing the spark plug, getting the timing belt and fan belt changed too as they were long due. Then after one week of driving the same problem occured with a lack of power and the engine sounding like a stutering roaring rev and then my clutch goes.So i was thinking well maybe my clutch was wearing thus causing my problem but have just gotten my clutch fixed and driving home the stutter started again.

My engine light is still on and was wondering if a senser could be gone in the car that is causing this problem and making this happen at a certain engine temperature.If this could be the case instead or if it sounds like and injector problem to anyone please let me know.

Also i have read on the forum that the 1.8 has a lambda sensor. DOes the 96 1.6 version have the lambda sensor.

Any advice would be appreciated

Thanks.

[pureum]

Hi!

You might check simply whether your carina run with 3 cylinder or not.

When the problem occurs, just park in safe place with engine running.

Then, try to unplug the cable connected to each one injector out of 4. When the engine runs same condition even one of cable unplugged, that injector should be replaced. When the engine runs more unstable, the injector is OK.

About injector, you can buy a second hand one with less than 10 sterling. In my case, I paid less than 12 sterling for injector and fitting.

Good luck!

[francois]

yes. I had exactly that and it was the injector. cost me 130£ to get one fitted. Its likely to have damaged your oxygen sensor by the way!