Hey everyone. I am a new member here. I am stuck on a problem with my corolla. It is a 95 DX with 330k miles. It is my daily driver, and it is also my favorite car.
With that said, I have developed a problem that has me trumped. Recently the car just started stalling when I am highway driving. No CEL's, it just dies. It will not start back up immediately, I have to wait about 3 minutes, then it will restart. Then when I start driving, the same thing will happen after about 5 minutes of driving. Needless to say I am lucky to have not caused any accidents. My car has stalled in some really bad spots.
This is what I have replaced/inspected. The motor is a 7AFE with a 5spd.
1. Fuel Pump-replaced with a new unit from autozone.
2. New fuel filter.
3. Removed intake manifold and completely removed any gunk.
4. Removed and cleaned EGR system.
5. Inspected distributor cap and rotor. When removing the rotor, I removed the 4 screws on the distributor, and noticed that there are two wires held together by a small ground nut. One wire had separated from the ground connections, so I soldered a new wire and a new "o" fitting, and replaced.
6. Pulled valve cover to inspect timing belt. All is well.
7. Replaced spark plug wires with new units.
8. Inspected spark plugs.
Other than that I am stuck. Driving around the city it is fine. The motor just shuts off within the first five minutes of highway driving. I don't know what else to look for other than relays.
Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Have you checked all the ground wires? There should be one on the left (passenger side) strut tower on the engine bay. Make sure it's tight. Sounds like something I had happen twice and a poor ground was the cause. Also make sure the ground terminal on the battery is well connected.
Thanks for the suggestions. The battery is new and I cleaned the connections earlier today. And I also checked the ground. There was a ground going from the passenger side strut tower to the intake manifold.
Really strange because the car runs great. It just does this on highway driving. Could the crank position sensor do this? Ont he distributor I wanted to be clear that I was talking about one of the coil wires that separated. I re-wired it and it still just completely dies only when highway driving. It is the weirdest thing.
When it dies does it slowly die like it's losing fuel or real quick like electrical? Once dead have you had somebody help you and check for spark?
When it dies, it just completely shuts down as if you would yank the negative terminal out. I checked all ground connections and removed, scrubbed with a wire brush, and re-installed. But all of the times it has died, I have had to pull over, or push the car out of the way, wait 3 minutes and it will fire back up. It is the strangest thing. I am going to go get my battery checked and see if there is anything wrong with my amps/volts.
I believe if I had a faulty injector, that would not cause the car to shut down completely on the fly. At the least there would be a misfire in the upper RPM's if not the entire RPM range.
At this point, I have my battery and alternator tested and all is well. Checked all my grounds.
I am tempted to buy a new distributor. The ignition coil or control module could be getting close to retirement. They are known commonly to shut the car down if they get hot, and will restart the car after the car cools down. These are symptoms relative to my problem. So I am going to test this theory today by letting the car idle for a while as well as tapping on the coil and seeing if this may cause the car to shut off.
The ignition coil or control module could be getting close to retirement. They are known commonly to shut the car down if they get hot, and will restart the car after the car cools down. These are symptoms relative to my problem.
I think that you are right that there is overheat in the control module.
I think that you are right that there is overheat in the control module.
I 2nd this.
__________________ Corolla Number TWO OLD: Corolla 1- 96 4AFE, AE101 w/ 225k Miles orig. motor, 129k trans. - TOTALED. NEW: Corolla 2- 96 4AFE, AE101 w/ 161k Miles on motor and trans.
I went to the local pick and pull and found a used ignition ignitor. I have the 7AFE and I guess depending on whether the car is auto/manual/4AFE the ignitor is internal in the distributor as opposed to my car where the ignitor is mounted on the driver side firewall. But the Ignition control module/coil seems to be the same with the exception of a difference in serial numbers. So after 12 dollars, I found one out of a 90k mile 4AFE.
After replacement I took the car on a long drive and it did stall again on the highway. I was very frustrated in hoping that I would finally solve this incredibly unusual problem.
So here is a list of what I have replaced, repaired, tested.
The only facts so far is that engine shuts down while driving on the highway. When I am at a constant speed of 60+ m.p.h. the engine will shut off after about 5 minutes of driving. There are no signs of overheating, it shuts down. I must wait at least 4 minutes before the engine will restart.
I can't think of what else to check other than tearing apart the center console and making sure the ECU ground is good if there even is an ECU ground? I may go back to pick and pull tomorrow and see if I can snug a fuel pump relay.
I also may check on the crank sensor. But I figured if it were bad it would shut the car down altogether and not restart. City driving the car is fine. Just highway, and a few occasional times then the car is warm, or if it is warm outside.
Last edited by Suprawillis; 03-31-2010 at 10:04 PM.
My mind has been racing about this problem so much that it makes me oblivious to normal things. I just took the trash outside wearing nothing but my tighty whities and basketball shoes.
Anyhow I wanted to check a few things before I went to bed. I tore apart the center console and removed the radio, and all that mess to try to find the ECU. According to the Haynes Manual, it is located behind the radio. Well my 7AFE ECU is not behind the radio. I found the cruise control ECU and thats it,
Next I removed the crank positioning sensor. And this is what I have found:
I broke the bolt hole to the sensor prying it off the block. So I am not sure if I busted the magnetic head. It is possible, but upon removal, I noticed the head seemed to be broken off the rubber base of the sensor. It just "wobbles". So one of my theories is that the head could be "bobbling" around at high speeds throwing off a bad signal to the crank. Off to autozone tomorrow for more trial and error.
i had the same problem with my 95 . 5speed mitzu eclipse. N/A. driving city fine. innerstate fine. but i would notice it would stall down sometimes shut off for a couple seconds. then i realized that when it stalled it acutally isnt stalling the motor is shutting off!
Do you know what push starting it? in a 5 speed you can start the car by pushing it and engaging a gear to spin the motor. i'll eventually start right back up. therefore, when you driving on the innerstate and it stalls the motor is still moving and it eventually starts back up. but if it completely dies then bassically it was the same thing.
I cant remember what we did to fix it. i wasnt to sure what it was but i know what your talking about. but if you did what most these guys said then i dont know. we also though it was the ignition but i forgot i'll see if my bro remember what it exactly was.
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