1996 Toyota Camry 4cyl Wont Start & Hello Forum I'm new

[kimbersway]

Hello everyone

I am new to this website and fairly new to a Toyota. I purchased this car in January this year for $2900 with 113,000 miles on it. I've posted once, but I would like to post the history so I could get some good advice from those who are experienced and all advice is certainly appreciated! I've always wanted a Toyota and I've always purchased used cars and to tell you the truth, because of my consistently low budget - this is probably the most expensive car I’ve ever owned! lol. I'm the 3rd owner. The original owner lived in Queens, NY and the guy I bought it from lived there and moved here to the Midwest and owned it close to a year. We are smack in the middle of the Midwest and now I've owned it since the first of January. Because of the low mileage and the great price and the body isn't too bad - I jumped on the car, being my budget was $3,000.

I thought I got a steal! Several hundred dollars later! Apparently they didn't keep up the maintenance. When I first got it I put struts and mounts on it...close to $600. Before I did that, I went to a local shop and had a tune up done. Now I know the importance of even the little things. It is important to take your car to a REPUTABLE company, even for those little things because they sure screwed things up.

First they didn't put a distributor cap on, so they say. I left after getting the tune up that day and went to work, that night I broke down on the side of the road because they had loosened or did something to it. It had popped off the car and the rotor cup as well. I'm not sure what those idiots did to it. A friend of mine came and we bought another distributor cap and rotor and quick fixed it on the car to get it home. First thing in the morning I went back to the shop and it was ugly...I brought it in their garage and they supposedly fixed it.

Three weeks later the car breaks down again and this time something with the rotor and I had it towed to a reputable shop. The screw went through the distributor, so I now have a brand new distributor. This was $400 and some change. I will save the details of that nightmare with that horrible shop and will try to focus on the history of my car. I plan on taking a long trip and wanted to get the car in tip top shape. I then had the timing belt, water pump, cam seals, crank seals replaced...it took them 2 hrs to get the crank shaft bolt off! I also had the seal on the oil filter replaced - it was spewing oil all over the place. I had them check for other links and none were visible. There is a shaking with the steering wheel, from what I read is pretty common for this year, but I wanted that fixed as well. I had all the mounts looked at, but no one seems to think it's necessary to change them and that I should live with the vibration.


So I had the dog bone replaced...that was less than $60 and an easy fix and it took about half of the vibration down, but it still vibrates when in gear. I had all pads and rotors replaced, as I thought maybe the front rotors were warped. Still shaking. The car purrs and when going down the highway, there is still a little shimmy in the front around that 65-75 marking...but I can live with that because its not that bad. I took it to another shop and had it aligned again (the shop that did that terrible tune up aligned it). My front tires were worn pretty badly from that alignment so I replaced them and had everything balanced.

There’s still that shaking in the front on the highway, even after all that. I personally think it will eventually need a transmission mount, as every other time I put it into reverse, there is sometimes a hard thunk and it feels like the motor wants to take off running with a jerk, then its immediately fine. There are two problems that still bother me - when I turn left there is a thunking, or a little bit of a rumble - it seemed to be getting louder. I had three different people look at it and they all think I'm crazy, but that sound only seems to play out sometimes. The axle is fine, the CV axle is fine and the boot is fine. Someone said the wheel bushings? That's the least of my worries now. Another problem is the brakes, even after the rotors and pads have been replaced, when I'm going at slow speeds it seems like the discs slip...I posted in another thread and it was kindly advised me that it could be the wheel speed sensor - I'm going to get to that after this other mess. So the car has been running great besides those few problems that I was about to embark on.


A few weeks ago it started running a little rough and misfiring at a stop sign. I got it home and popped the hood and the spark plug wires had popped up (two in the middle). There was some oil on the plugs so we changed the valve cover gasket and the oil seals - I also had the spark plugs replaced again and replaced the wires again. The boots on the 2 middle plugs were dry rotted and stuck to the plugs. It appeared to the mechanic that did it this time that they didn't actually change anything. Again, without going back to that horrible "tune-up" shop, the car was running great...then it happened. Just the night before last, while in reverse leaving the store, the lights on the dash started flashing and you could hear the relays. Then it stopped and we just drove it home. I shut it off when we got home and it wouldn't restart like the battery was going dead or the alternator is bad (weird stuff was happening like poltergeist activity). So I immediately rounded up the troops and we got the battery tester out and we tried to jump the car. Before this the alarm lights were going off - even without the key in the ignition...no horns (later found that the alarm had been cut from the horn). The keyless remote doesn't work. We are thinking the toggle switch on the alarm system somehow got hit, which is a possibility because my brother drove it that night and he's a tall guy.

We unhooked the battery and had it tested and it was bad, so I bought a new battery. Nothing at all this time, it was still dead. We checked the fuses and the fuse for the alternator was blown so we fixed that. We finally got it to the point that it will turn over, but won't start. We tested the ignition control module and it’s good. The only thing we can think of is the alarm system? The entire time I owned the car, there was a solid bright red light on the left side of the dash - which I'm taking that, meant it was off, and like I said before the keyless never worked and I never cared to have the alarm on anyways. Now the light is off even when we tried to reset the alarm as "on". When trying to start it and it was turning over - the light never blinked or came back on at all. I read a couple of suggests online on how to "reset" the alarm and they seemed pretty easy and we tried them.


We are going to do more testing with it today and run some diagnostics. The alternator seems fine and so does the starter, but when messing with the alarm, we got it back to the total dead stage - no nothing. I think we can get it to turn over again, but it won't start...could it also be the fuel pump? If it’s the fuel pump, why would everything go completely dead sometimes? What could have possibly happened that would blow the alternator fuse? The battery seemed really bad, so I guess the alternator could have been running off the battery and that would explain that...but what could have made the alarm get switched off and even when we tried to reset it, it won't start. I hope I'm not too all over the place with this, but I figured giving a little history on the car might help.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as we are going to try to fix this ourselves before having to take it to a shop. I don't trust the shops anyways and they don't take the time to trouble shoot and just start replacing things and my $2900 Camry is already a $5,000 Camry...I don't want it to be a 6 thousand one this week. The Camry now has 120,000 on it and I would like to put at least 100,000 more. Thanks everyone again!

[eyeball96]

to TN

I moved your thread to the GEN 3/4 forum to help you find help with your problems. Your thread was a long and difficult read...so I edited it a little for ya

Paragraphs are your friend.

[ghettosled]

wow, quite the book. breaking into paragraphs will really help the read-ability.

it certainly sounds like there is an electrical gremlin somewhere. its good you tested the ignition control module. when the motor cranks, check for spark at the plug and take note of the color of the spark to see if it is strong or weak.

there is something going on with either the wiring and/or alarm. start tracing wires and see if there are any cuts or bad splices. though, now that im thinking about it - i dont believe the factory alarm prevents the car from starting. if i recall correctly, when i first got my car i set off the alarm and with it still going off, i was able to start the car hoping that would turn it off. it didnt.

if the car doesnt do anything, try giggling the wires from the battery to the starter and ground. wonder if something could be faulty in the steering column.

if the car tries to start but doesnt, check to see if there is spark. if so, take off the intake from the throttle body and spray some starter spray to see if you arent getting any fuel.

[kimbersway]

We tried to get a spark...and nothing...now the car is dead again. I'm going nuts on this! Thanks for all the help and sorry for the long read. After all this, I know I rambled too much, but I just couldn't help myself. I'm just about ready to sell it as is at this point. We are still working on it and I will update later. Thanks again!

[kimbersway]

Thank you! I certainly appreciate the editing...I know that was alot...but I figure I would just get it all out. I'm thinking if I'm going to keep this car I just might be referring back to the history. Thank you again for your help and allowing me to post!

[kimbersway]

Well we changed a lot of fuses and checked everyone we could find. Had the alternator tested at the parts store and it is fine. Found out the alarm system is a checkmate alarm after market system and spoke with a Toyota dealer and was told they only deal with Factory alarms and was referred to a shop that deals specially with these types of systems. I spoke with them and made an appointment and they are going to disengage the whole system - they said it would be about $65 and that should fix it....this guy says they've seen it before - we shall see. It's dead - we My friend thinks it's a fuse link. I'm going to have it towed in the morning and tomorrow I will be reminded of why I love the plus membership of Triple A! I'm nervous it could be something more serious with the wiring.

[zppeacock]

I had the same problem with a car last week that came in. Customer wanted a new battery so we Installed one. Little did we know it had a aftermarket alarm in it. The owner bought it used and it didn't have the remote and he didn't know about it. As soon as the battery was hooked up it would go off. The toggle switch to disarm it didn't work (go figure). So I had to crawl under the dash and start unhooking the alarm system. This alarm was aftermarket not sure if yours is also.

[fenixus]

at this point I wouldn't bother checking any mechanical parts except for sorting out electrical issues as they seem to be home to your gremlin...

is your remote key fob a Toyota OEM one or some aftermarket?

get a hold of electrical wiring diagrams for your model and start checking everything that aftermarket alarm is/was spliced into and if it was a remote starter also then it will be a multitude of circuits (brake pedal electrical wire, ignition, power locks, tacho, etc.). some alarms are even spliced at wires going to ECU (behind glove box) as it's the easiest spot to identify some of them. you never know what someone did to car before you (my V6 was like that, could write a nice CSI case based on own experience with it hehe).

if alternator fuse was blown then there was a massive short, check all other fuses under hood and behind the coin drawer.

make sure electrical wiring ground points are clean and secure, there is like 3 of them under hood (for wiring harness) and I think 4 ground straps for engine.
there is also like 7 wiring harness ground points in cabin, both sides of car and center console area, all under dash panels.

I would completely remove aftermarket alarm with all its wiring off the car at this point. make sure to re-connect or at least secure places were wire insulation was damaged by splices. you have a short somewhere.

[Oceans]

I can say that after time I have seen the same with remote starts and aftermarket alarms, causing issues with a vehicle running it is best to rid yourself of that headache first as others said.

Go one shot at a time. One thing about your vibration issue I will mention is wheel bearings.

You dont really hear them till they go, mine were on the out and I couldnt hardly hear any noise from them but once removed you could see they were done. The part isnt that expensive but if you dont have the tools, the job can be a little bit as then need pressed out.

After you get those electrical issues sorted Id look there for the highway speed vibration.

[bronzemaxell]

i know afterket alarm actually disable the engine with a kill switch if installed either by cutting power to the fuel pump or starter/starter relay, 3 basic elements to keep the engine running, air, fuel and spark, but i advise take the alarm out of the equation first.

[kimbersway]

Thanks everyone! I am sorry I didn't get back to you all earlier on this. I had the car towed to a stereo/alarm installation shop. They changed a few fuses and took out the alarm...although the guy said he left part of the alarm engaged so I could unlock it with the remote still. It has been fine since and it cost a total of $71. The only thing I'm worried about is, the fuses they changed are ones we checked and they were fine before it was brought in there. Right before it was towed, the car would not start at all-no lights, nothing - it was completely dead. The shope said it was turning over when they got it. Who knows.

It was fixed and then I drove it 1400 miles to New Jersey. Now I'm having that strange braking buzzing now and its worse. Other than that, which came about mainly while I've been driving in slow traffic, the shaking on the front end, it did fine. I did have a strange thing happen a few blocks from my destination, as I mentioned in the buzzing thread. When I was at a stop light, the car sounded like it shut off, but it was still running and the dash board lights came on and for a second it was like my transmission was gone. I put it in park and started the car up and its been running fine since. All fluids are good, nothing seems to be wrong with the car. I'm going to find a good shop to take it to, or maybe even break down and take it to Toyota.

Thanks everyone for their help and comments!

[Mike Gerber]

For the dying, try cleaning the throttle body yourself with a can of spray throttle body cleaner or spray carburator cleaner. Here's a DIY thread on how it's done on the later generation of your 4 cylinder 5SFE engine. Your engine should be virtually identical. This is something you can do yourself for just a few dollars. The car will be difficult to start after as it will act like it's flooded, but it will eventually start. Then take the car for a ride for about 10-15 minutes to clear all of the cleaner out of the car.

How to: Cleaning Throttle Body -4 Cylinder Engines- With Pictures

For the shaking in the front end, I would take it in to a professional you can trust and tell them about the shaking and ask them to inspect the all the front end components. This could be a safety issue so have it looked at.

As for the brake noise, can you be more specific about when exactly the noise happens and when it goes away? Things like just driving at slow speeds without braking, or when the brakes are applied? Can you describe the noise?

Mike