engine/ timing belt question

i have a situation that needs some explaing. i own a 93 4 cylinder camry le w/ 166,000 miles on it. during da 5 yrs that i have had it i have nevered had any problem w/ it until now. on saturday it was running fine on da freeway, but a block after i got off da freeway the engine seem to sputter. it countinued for about 3 blocks until the car finally shut off. i pulled 2 da sided to examine the problem & i started to play with the spark plug wires, since they recently gave my problems. after a few minutes da car started but when i put it in drive it would shut down again. this would happened 3 more times. when it did finally start i drove 3 blocks to my friends house. da next morirng it took several tries to start my car but it failed. on my 5th try it worked, but when the car was idle it would sputter. now heres da funny part, when i reved da engine da light sputter would go away. after allowing my car to warm up for about 20 minutes i headed home. it ran fine except when i was at a stop light. i then put da car in nuetral to get rid of da sputter & jumped on da freeway. during my 20 minute drive i had no problems, my car ran perfectly fine even at 75mph. when i got on da main street da rattle cointinued when i was at a light. yesterday i took it to my nechanic to get checked out. i had him do my routine oil change since i needed it & i had him replace da spark plug wires. my car not starting was due to my faulty spark wires, but it did not solve why my car would sputter while idle. my mechanic had told me that why water pump was leaking & my radiator was clogged. ever since i bought this car i nevered had the timing belt or da water pump changed & out of the 166,000 miles on da car 54,000 is all my doing. so, can this sputtering be contributed to my leaking water pump, my need to change my timing belt, da radiator, or is there some other factor that can be contributed to my situation. my mechanica also quoted me at $375-450. i called a toyota reapir center and the quoted me at $400-500, is this a correct pricing? my friends brother said he would do it for $275, but i have nevered had him do any work on my car. i have already opted for my mechanic to do the job since his people are more familiar w/ my car. so please feel free to give any feedback. thanx for your time. slikk

[Toysrme]

As the RPMS rise, the amount of leeway between good and bad timing increases be it Cam, or ignition timing, however there is very little leeway at idle. This would attribute the fact that once it get's up and goes, it runs "acceptably".

The timing belt probably jumped two teeth. Generally you cna run one tooth off, two teeth very poorly, but three teeth simply won't run. (remember that not only is the mechanical timing of the valves off because the camshaft is off, the ignition timing for the spark plugs is off too!!!)

Quickest way to tell is to put a timing light to it. DO NOT let the mechanic simply rotate the distributor to fix the problem. (They're bolted into their setting and bolts don't come loose after a decade!) The belt jumped. That means the timing belt needs to be replaced, and you might aswell do any other belts that go with it.

At 166,000 miles you probably need the full setup. Do a full tuneup belts, hoses, plus every fluid in the car... (Brake, power steering, A/T fluid, Differential fluid, Oil) and all the other goodies! And anything that randomly breaks that can be chalked up to "maintinance".

[Deuce]

i swear to the gods i posted in this thread.

IAC, also have them test your distributor/distributor coil, cuz it could be close to burning out.