Do not forget the small stuff! I had this exact same problem with my 88 Dodge Aries recently. Stereotypical enough, it happened after I took my car in to the Pennzoil Quick Lube station (who happened to be ASE certified for that matter), they got done with my oil change, called me over to get my car and pay the bill and I couldn't get the car to start up! Now, I only recently purchased the vehicle, which had been sitting with about 1/2 tank of fuel in the tank for about 2 years, with the same oil, and same stale gas, so I tried everything to "even out" the idle, Chevron Techron Concentrate, Seafoam through the TBI, Seafoam in the tank, GumeOut Regane, Berryman's B-12 FIC. In order to purge out the old gas.
Anyways, the mechanic looked under the hood and a bunch of the vacuum lines were cracked, and dried out; so they replaced the vac lines, and did a good Throttle Body disassemble, clean up, and re-assemble, and the car is running GREAT now.
Previously, I was getting all sorts of strange codes, 2 MAP sensor codes, an EGR solenoid and/or servo/cruise control failure, etc. Now all the codes are gone (light is off anyways). And I'm left with a great running car, I do have 1 "phantom" code left though, something about an "EGR solenoid" - from research I've done, it appears carbon build up may be keeping the EGR open or something, but I'm not experiencing the high idle I was previously.
It was so bad, I did not want to keep the car in Park or Neutral for long periods, avoided drive thrus, etc. Because with the car in N or P, the idle drastically increased, and figured it couldn't be good for the engine.
And I'm now also getting better MPG (about 200 miles per tank, rather than 75-100. Lol). Next up, will be a complete tune up, and timing belt replacement (the mechanic said simply from the Florida heat, that rubber is bound to deteriorate, just as those vac lines did.
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Friday, May 6th, 2011 AT 4:11 PM
