Bucking Camry

[Paul1960Z]

My 1993 Camry bucks and hesitates in the cold weather until the car is warmed up. At a stop light the car will also lunge forward requiring me to press hard on the brake. It used to only do this in damp weather but now it also does it in the cold weather.

[MrSo0h0o]

i think this is all pretty normal for a 13yr old car.. hesitation how? like it isnt pushing hard? most likely b/c it isnt warmed up yet.. for the lunging forward, its probably your engine mounts(dogbone, front, tranny, etc) what do you idle at when u first start the car? upwards of 2k i would imagine.. that would be the reason for your lunging.

[Mike Gerber]

Doing this type of thing in damp weather is usually an indication of an ignition system problem. You don't say how many miles on the car and what has been done to it. If you haven't done so recently, I would start by replacing the spark plugs, distributor cap, distributor rotor and spark plug wires. The plugs should be replaced every 60,000 miles if you use the recommended platinum plugs; 30,000 miles for non-platinum plugs. If that doesn't help, I would run checks on the coil and the coolant temperature sensor (Toyota calls that an ECT sensor.) To do these checks you will need a DVM and the specs from the sticky at the top of this forum.

Mike

[Paul1960Z]

Originally Posted by MrSo0h0o

i think this is all pretty normal for a 13yr old car.. hesitation how? like it isnt pushing hard? most likely b/c it isnt warmed up yet.. for the lunging forward, its probably your engine mounts(dogbone, front, tranny, etc) what do you idle at when u first start the car? upwards of 2k i would imagine.. that would be the reason for your lunging.

It is almost like sputtering while I'm at a light and also driving down the road. It happens until the car is warmed up. Until then, it is an adventure to get down the road. The rpms bounce around until the car warms up.

[Cyorke]

I have to agree with Mike on this one also. Usuall bucking as you put it is associated with bad ignition components. However since it seems to get better as the car warms up it is very possible the coolant sensor is malfunctioning causing the ECM to send bad signals to the iginition system. Start by at least checking everything athat mike said in the ignition system. If they seem to be in good shape then you may want to break out the DVM and download therepair manual that is stickied at the top of the forum page.