Corolla Ecu Fault Code

[joey jojo]

Hello.

Please help, I bought a Corolla 1.6 X reg last year had it for Two weeks and whilst on holiday had an orange engine warning light, I contacted the AA (Part of the Warranty) and the engineer cleared the fault something about lean on bank 1, said that the fault had been on there a while and not to worry about it.

My wife drives the car normally and drives around town with the kids so nothing to strenuous for the vehicle, however I took the car for a blow up the motorway a couple of weeks ago and hey presto the light came on again, I contacted my warranty company and they pointed me in the direction of a garage, they plugged the machine into the car and got the following reading: -

The fault code is PO171 (Lean on bank 1)

Could be: Mass Air flow sensor Exhaust intake

Air systems

Fuel pressure

Injectors

They cleared the fault and took the car for a test drive, the light didn't re-appear they told my wife to drive the car around and bring the car back when the light comes back on, three weeks later I take the car up the motorway again and the light came on again, immediately took the car back to the garage, who plugged it back in and said that they need to take it to Toyota to plug it in to see if their diagnostics would detect anything different or cut down the amount of errors.

Basically the garage are saying I have to take it to Toyota who charge £88.00 pound an hour for a three hour min advanced diagnosis which the warranty company won't pay for.

I guess my question is sorry for the blurb, has anyone come across this problem before?

Also I spoke to Toyota yesterday and they said it could be the Mass Air flow sensor, I read somewhere this could be cleaned, does anyone have any tips please.

Thanks for your help.

Look forward to your replies.

[revolute]

The fault code P0171 means that the engine is running slightly weak intermittently on bank 1 (before the cat) this fault is normally alsways caused by either a faulty air mass meter or throttle position sensor. The most likely cause would be the air mass meter - normally you can just get away with cleaning the hot wire element with some intake cleaner or brake cleaner. You can give the guys at http://www.ecutesting.com a call and they would normally be able to give you a better description of the code and what it may indicate.

[northdude]

try cleaning sensor 1st weve found that if they get silicon on them they can intemitantly play up mayb not the prob but try it