Help a girl out

[CamoSamurai]

Hi! I am trying to help my stubborn husband out here. Our wonderful, usually dependable 2008 corolla started giving us issues today. Check engine light popped on, it's idling rough at times and then kinda sputters out and doesn't respond to the gas pedal. Kind of odd.. husband said it made a click noise but I didn't witness that in the time I was watching it idle. It was remaining around 1,000 rpms while sitting in our driveway.. however it seems to dip down when it starts going rough.

We first thought maybe bad fuel so we put extra fuel into the tank. We let it run and revved the engine some to move the new fuel around. This is our daily use car so it wouldn't have an issue with old gas or anything like that.. we actually just fueled up on.. tuesday or wednesday, so there was still some fuel in the tank. errm.. trying to think of what else.

I did go out and write down the VIN to lookup on the toyota website. It has a recall supposedly, but keep in mind I am very new to knowing anything about cars. I don't know if this could be our problem or not. Would it cause the rough idle and lack of responsiveness from the pedal? No worries I will push the car to a mechanic myself if I have to, I'd just like to mentally prepare myself for the potential issues.

-- I think I covered all the issues it's presenting.

[onemph05]

Originally Posted by CamoSamurai

Hi! I am trying to help my stubborn husband out here. Our wonderful, usually dependable 2008 corolla started giving us issues today. Check engine light popped on, it's idling rough at times and then kinda sputters out and doesn't respond to the gas pedal. Kind of odd.. husband said it made a click noise but I didn't witness that in the time I was watching it idle. It was remaining around 1,000 rpms while sitting in our driveway.. however it seems to dip down when it starts going rough.

We first thought maybe bad fuel so we put extra fuel into the tank. We let it run and revved the engine some to move the new fuel around. This is our daily use car so it wouldn't have an issue with old gas or anything like that.. we actually just fueled up on.. tuesday or wednesday, so there was still some fuel in the tank. errm.. trying to think of what else.

I did go out and write down the VIN to lookup on the toyota website. It has a recall supposedly, but keep in mind I am very new to knowing anything about cars. I don't know if this could be our problem or not. Would it cause the rough idle and lack of responsiveness from the pedal? No worries I will push the car to a mechanic myself if I have to, I'd just like to mentally prepare myself for the potential issues.

-- I think I covered all the issues it's presenting.

Bring it to the dealership and its probably the ECM recall. Its simply the computer brain of the car and they had a bad batch.

[CamoSamurai]

Awesome! Thanks, that makes me feel 100 times better. We're taking tomorrow morning to get repaired. All the dealerships are closed today it seems.

[mikered30]

You should have gotten a recall notice early last year for this issue. Sounds like the ECU is the issue.

[johnoh]

I wouldn't make any assumptions at this point. If you go to autozone they will tell you for free what the check engine code was (even if it the check engine light is not currently on). Takes 5 minutes. The code will be in the form of Pxxxx . Post that code here and people can comment on what causes that code for your corolla.

[jmazz77]

+1 How can anyone assume it is the ECU without knowing what code set off the CEL?

[NWCorolla05]

Proceed on both tracks: get the code on the CEL and if you haven't yet had the ECU replaced, make time for that.

[i4getlots]

do you guys keep up with maintenance? meaning oil changes, changing the air filter, fuel filter and spark plugs?