New here with a 95 camry - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

HiFiMan · 06-24-2011, 01:35 AM

Hello everyone, I am hoping to get some advice concerning our old faithful 95 Camry.

I have had this car since 98 when it had 60,000 on it, it now has 204,000. I really love the car and would like to have some extensive updating done to it in order to keep it dependable and on the road for a long long time.

Over the years I have replaced axles and exhaust, had to transmission fliulds flushed and changed at 100,000, replaced three timing belts, water pump alternater, distributer, stuff like that, and kept the brakes up too. Now it is running rough and steering loose and a few other things, but I really want to put some money into it instead of buying a new car.

I am seriously considering putting a couple thousnad dollars into making some repairs and bring it back to peak performance.

I would like to ask for any and all comments so that I can make the best choices and save this car for another couple hunderd thousand.

Thanks everyone.

Robert

TRD95 · 06-24-2011, 02:35 AM

Welcome to the forum HiFiMan! I too have a 1995 Camry! I've had mine for about 12 years in the family and she's been such a stout machine with currently 345,700 miles on the original engine. Glad to hear you're at 204k! You can get so much more out of your engine by following these tips:

Change your oil at 3k if you're running Conventional oil, and 5k if you're running synthetic! I know some people may disagree, but the more miles you keep racking up, the more you will need to compensate for increased wear. Shorter OCI's will certainly help combat this.

As for your running rough condition, can you please be more descriptive of the symptoms? (i.e. rough idle, stalling, etc).

Loose steering can be caused by bad lower control arm bushings, front sway bar bushings, bad lower ball joints, or in much severe cases, a bad steering rack. I highly recommend replacing steering components with Genuine Toyota parts if you don't mind paying a little extra for good quality. I ran MOOG lower ball joints and they were absolute junk. I replaced my lower ball joints and my lower control arms with Toyota Parts. Car felt like new and it was absolutely worth it!

Welcome to TN!

hill8570 · 06-24-2011, 11:04 AM

Welcome! As I'm sure you know, you own the finest model year of the finest car ever built

.

Might want to go into a bit more detail on the rough-running engine. Might be something as simple as plug wires.

What engine you got? 4-banger or 6?

Chris Crash · 06-24-2011, 11:29 AM

Welcome to toyotanation! You've got a whole wealth of knowledge here for more than all of your camry's problems, whether you choose to DIY and save $$$ or take it to a shop for convenience, many of us here can lead you in the right direction if you can provide us with some more details. Also, I'd love to see some pictures!

Chris Crash · 06-24-2011, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hill8570

Welcome! As I'm sure you know, you own the finest model year of the finest car ever built

.

Might want to go into a bit more detail on the rough-running engine. Might be something as simple as plug wires.

What engine you got? 4-banger or 6?

Seeing as it has a distributor, I'm gonna guess it's 5SFE. I don't think the 1MZ was ever offered with one...and seeing how it's a 1995 model it's either 5SFE or 1MZFE! ...unless OP has done serious engine swapping...

hill8570 · 06-24-2011, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Crash

Seeing as it has a distributor, I'm gonna guess it's 5SFE. I don't think the 1MZ was ever offered with one...and seeing how it's a 1995 model it's either 5SFE or 1MZFE! ...unless OP has done serious engine swapping...

Duh...missed the dizzy reference. Yup...the 1MZ was OBD-II from the get-go, so no dizzy.
So, he's got the best engine of the best year of the best car ever made

Not that I'm biased or anything

HiFiMan · 06-24-2011, 09:48 PM

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.
Yes it is a 4 cyl engine. Let me give more detail as to the main problems i am having with her.

First the engine roughness.

The engine sputters (misses ) pretty bad when first started. It doesn't lope or speed up or slow down, just I can feel a miss every second or so, and when first startng to drive it it will pull the car but it just has a pesky miss in the engine. When revving the engine, (cold or warmed up) it usually smooths out and runs good, but when allowed to idle after that it goes back to missing. (at low RPM's)
If it gets driven a considerable distance it eventually smooths out and does fine, although not always, and it seems to do it's best on the interstate with constant speed.
I recently put a new distributer on it and new plugs and wires, although NOT toyota parts they seemed to work just fine and even cured a problem I had starting the engine cold in humid conditions.

The steering issue.

This car had some bad front tires back in NOV. so I put two new ones on the front. Immediately i noticed that the steering got really squirrely and would jump all over the place at highway speed. I assumed it was an alighnment issue and have been planning on having that done soon anyway. However, I kept putting it off and after 5000 miles or so, I see zero uneven wear on the tires which might indicate that is the case.

The problem is that when turning one direction the car responds like a normal car with rack and pinion steering. when the wheel is moved the other way, it almost feels like I am about to roll a tire off the bead and the car is hard to control. This makes it very dangerous to drive in wet or windy conditions, or snow for that matter (I ended up in a ditch last winter because of it) and I have forbidden my wife and family to drive it until we get this figured out.

I assume that the suspension needs some work anyhow, since there are audible "clunks and rattles" that come from the front suspension when we go over bumps anyway.

I have a competent certified mechanic that does side work from home who has serviced a few things on the car before. He claimed to be back logged when I spoke to him last and was kinda leaning towards NOT spending too much on keeping a "beater" running. I still would like to save this car and keep it in good mechanical shape, it was the first thing my wife and I ever bought together and it was intended to be a long term investment for our family.

Any additional advice is most welcomed.

***Mister_Perkins*** · 06-24-2011, 10:33 PM

Aww I missed the welcome wagon!!

Damn you Penske truck leasing! Lol

HiFiMan · 06-26-2011, 01:32 PM

Hey guys, really need to figure this out, I included some extra details if that might help you guys give me some good direction or things to have checked out.

Thanks!!!!

4Cyl'erThriller · 06-26-2011, 02:24 PM

Welcome to TN! What kind of plug wires did you use for the last replacement? If you are still riding on the original suspension that is likely your culprit for the ride quality. Id say new struts and and alignment and while your at it check the ball joints control arms and all the rubber bushings could probably use replacing.

Mike Gerber · 06-26-2011, 06:12 PM

"This car had some bad front tires back in NOV. so I put two new ones on the front. Immediately i noticed that the steering got really squirrely and would jump all over the place at highway speed."

I would suspect the new tires might be the problem. New doesn't always guarantee that they are perfect. I would take it back to where you purchased the tires and ask them to check the tires for broken belts and a possible radial pull.

As for the missing, I would have to ask how old the replacement wires are and if they are aftermarket or OEM. I have seen cheap aftermarket wires fail in as little as 1 year or 20,000 miles. I would also like to know if the new distributor was OEM or an aftermarket rebuild. I have seen those too fail in a year or 2 or with very few miles on them. If it is the distributor, it's usually the coil inside that develops a crack and causes problems.

Mike

hill8570 · 06-27-2011, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiFiMan

First the engine roughness.

The engine sputters (misses ) pretty bad when first started. It doesn't lope or speed up or slow down, just I can feel a miss every second or so, and when first startng to drive it it will pull the car but it just has a pesky miss in the engine. When revving the engine, (cold or warmed up) it usually smooths out and runs good, but when allowed to idle after that it goes back to missing. (at low RPM's)
If it gets driven a considerable distance it eventually smooths out and does fine, although not always, and it seems to do it's best on the interstate with constant speed.
I recently put a new distributer on it and new plugs and wires, although NOT toyota parts they seemed to work just fine and even cured a problem I had starting the engine cold in humid conditions.

OK, I'm going to ask a bunch of questions...bear with me...

Can you correlate the miss with any other work on the car, or did it "sneak up" on you gradually? Is it worse when cold (i.e., parked outside in winter) vs warm (parked outside in summer), vice versa, or doesn't matter? Any colored (blue/black/white) smoke out of the tailpipe while this is going on? What RPM does it try to idle at? I assume this miss existed both before and after the spark plug / dizzy / plug wire change? When you say you changed out the dizzy, do you mean the whole assembly (including the coil), or just the dizzy cap and perhaps the rotor?