Car Stalling

[coopns]

My dad sent me this email about his car, any thought?

"2004 Toyota Echo (Now Yaris ) Problem: Car Starts fine but stalls once load is placed on motor. Have to warm up until the blue light goes out before engine will carry load and the car will drive normally. When car stalls engine will always start right away when you turn key off and turn it on again. Put in a new air mass sensor and Toyota dealer spent five hours trying to solve the problem but no luck. One can't help but wonder if dealer can charge you $500 dollars if they can't fix or find the problem? They believe the problem is heat related.
Any suggestions?"

 

[Astro14]

Coolant temp sensor (not dash, but for ECU)... If the engine doesn't know it's cold, the ECU won't run it at higher idle...

Vacuum leak.

There are a lot of possibilities...that for $500, should have been exhausted and fixed!

 

[JC1]

Originally Posted By: coopns
My dad sent me this email about his car, any thought?

"2004 Toyota Echo (Now Yaris ) Problem: Car Starts fine but stalls once load is placed on motor. Have to warm up until the blue light goes out before engine will carry load and the car will drive normally. When car stalls engine will always start right away when you turn key off and turn it on again. Put in a new air mass sensor and Toyota dealer spent five hours trying to solve the problem but no luck. One can't help but wonder if dealer can charge you $500 dollars if they can't fix or find the problem? They believe the problem is heat related.
Any suggestions?"



Coop,

That's why we call them stealerships! You should visit Toyotanation.com as well as Youtube for hints on what you can check yourself.

Regards, JC.

 

[The_Jeff]

Originally Posted By: Astro14
Coolant temp sensor (not dash, but for ECU)... If the engine doesn't know it's cold, the ECU won't run it at higher idle...

Vacuum leak.

There are a lot of possibilities...that for $500, should have been exhausted and fixed!


I suspect the "blue light" is an ECM output based on coolant sensor input... which seems to be working.

I like the idea of a sensor drifting in value but not yet throwing a code. Coolant temp could be one of those... but so could MAP/MAF, TPS...

TPS in particular tells it whether or not to control idle-- if it's greater than 1% usually the computer says, hands off.

Sounds like the dealer put a rookie on this. One should look at live data, not just codes.

Furthermore, there should be a code right before it stalls for "OMG the rpms are under 400" and with that code should be freeze frame data. But this could be lost next key cycle.

If you want to haul up to Buxton, ME there's "Ken the Toyota guy" who might know something the dealer doesn't.