1993 Toyota Camry engine diagnosis

DAVEMC111

MEMBER
1993 TOYOTA CAMRY
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
220,000 MILES

I was driving my high mileage Camry over a small bridge and the oil light came on and I heard some clattering. Pulled over and I was low on oil- so I added some. Immediately changed the oil. I have put another 2K miles on the car. I continue to have some bucking and rpm fluctuation at certain speeds and rpms - mostly at low rpms under load. Also have lack of power in general and mpg fell from 29 to 24 mpg. I suspect valve damage but how can I isolate where my problem is? Thanks

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 AT 10:54 AM

2 Replies

LEGITIMATE007

MECHANIC
5,121 POSTS

If you want to check for valve damage. Do a simple compression check and that will tell you if your valves or rings or gasket is bad. Also you were saying that you have some bucking especially up a hill under load. Well your mapp sensor measures load so you may want to take a look at that, maybe ohm test it so see if its ok, get back to us with your findings, thanx

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Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 AT 11:04 AM

DAVEMC111

MEMBER
2 POSTS

I took it into a shop for diagnosis. The entire problem was isolated to a bad spark plug wire. Once wires were replaced (with cap/rotor) the engine miss was eliminated. This points out a couple of things - keep good records of when maintenance is done and don't jump ahead in troubleshooting. I replaced the spark plugs after the problem started but I did not see any issues with the wires. If I would have remembered how old they were I probably would have replaced them or inspected them better. Thanks for the help. Engine now has 221000 miles and still running well. Will check the gas mileage on next fill up.

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Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 AT 7:08 AM