Morning everybody. I made this account to help my wife. She has a 2007 Camry LE. Bone stock and unmolested.
This morning while driving, she noticed a shuddering that scared her. She called me and parked the car as soon as she could. I went to drive it around and, as she had said, it was shuddering.
I drove it for a bit, neighborhood and highways, and took note of everything. The RPMs were low - About 500. I'm not sure where it usually idles, I rarely drive this car, but my Jetta idles around 900 so this seems strange to me. RPM gauge occasionally bounces around at idle. Once the car gets moving there are no issues. Only at complete stop. It feels like the car is about to stall.
I drive a manual and if I keep it in gear while approaching a stop it makes the same shuddering because the RPMs are too low for the selected gear. This is what it reminds me of.
Here is a video of what's going on under the hood. I am a terrible cameraman, but as you can see, the airbox is vibrating heavily. That's the most obvious place. The engine and intake manifold are also bouncing around, but it's hard to see in the iPhone video.
You didn't mention the mileage but pull the air filter and take a look. Replace if dirty. Put two cans of a good gas treatment in the fuel tank. If the mileage is up there the mass air flow sensor could also be dirty and need cleaning. Check the wiring to the plugs and fiddle the four coil wires to see if anything is loose. The idle didn't seem much off to me as I watched the video. Normal idle whould be around 700-750.
The mileage is roughly 65k. Not that much. The filter is a K+N. I completely forgot that when I said it was unmodified. So maybe just clean the filter?
I'd imagine it's too early for the MAF to go bad. I just had to clean mine for the first time on my 1.8litre turbo at 112k.
It's running as if it has a vacuum leak. Any engine lights or anything on? It SHOULD be idling at or around 750ish rpm's. I noticed you had the ac on while you made the video. Does it do that with the ac off as well?
Pretty much how all the the 2AZ-FE I4 I4's are. Mines doing it too off and on. Have never been able to remove it completely. Fairly common complaint, numerous threads on here about rough idle on this engine.
500 RPM is not normal, it should be more line 750. The I4 can be a rough running engine, it is not balanced well. You may have a dirty throttle body or you may want to pull your battery terminal for a while. Whjen you reconnect it and start teh engine, it relearn its idle.
Good information! I've never heard that about the battery terminal. I just cleaned it for her the day before this started to happen. I took the terminals off and cleaned them with a baking soda/water mixture. Took all the corrosion and such away. They were very clean when I put them back on. That wouldn't have anything to do with it, right?
If you disconnect the batter terminal, you will set the ECU into a re-learn. If the TB/MAF is dirty, the idle will be horrible until the ECU re-calibrates to compensate for it.
I waited a week to verify, now I can say....I got it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I fixed my rough idle thats plagued the car since I bought it. Tens of thousands of miles and its gone.
A little background. I bought the 02 Camry in my signature cheap because it had numerous problems. From sludge to misfires to a rough idle. A mess. I've replaced, cleaned and taken off too many things to mention. I was in the process of taking off the airbox off to replace the intake manifold gasket thinking maybe that was the source of the rough idle and occasional misfires that had been going on since I bought the car. Why the guy got rid of it. Nobody could solve it. Holding the airbox for some reason I decided to tug on those weird looking resonators. Pop! came right off. You gotta be kidding me. Under the resonator hidden from view was a clamp. Loose! Totally loose! The one place I didn't look for an air leak. I had no idea they were removable. Thought it was all one piece. Nope. The skinny one and the rectangle one are both on with clamps!!! :facepalm: I took the whole airbox completely apart, cleaned, put it all back together, tightened the 5 clamps between the MAF and the TB. Started the car. To my shock and amazement it was idling up and down with the fans. Turn on the AC, put it in drive, it idles up instantly. AC kicks off, the idle is high for less than a second and drops! What its supposed to do. Adding and subtracting idle based on load!!!!! And that "skip" in the idle I was talking about. I researched and it turns out one of the sensors the vvt-i depends on is MAF. So..in addition to idling up, the skip disappeared because the vvt-i is setting valve timing correctly. I'm shocked. All the other work I've done to the engine is paying off now. At 260km its idle is perfect. Now that the valve timing is correct the valve noise is gone. Its quiet as a mouse. Not ready to say this is related but I'm not burning any oil for some reason. None. What the..In another 2k i will know for sure. Anyways I was wrong. These engines can idle smoothly. If I can get mine to idle smoothly being so old, so can anyone reading this. Make sure all 5 clamps on the airbox are tight. Somehow they get loose. Then move to other things.
Having that exact same issue with my toyota camry 2008 I-4, especially when the ac is on... it really drops low and starts to vibrate, bad sometimes off and on.... any clues as to how to solve this issue??
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