Vibrating in 2003 Corolla - Is this normal? Please help!
Hi all. I'm new here. I recently bought a 2003 LE in excellent condition with only 16,000 miles. Unfortunately, I've been less than pleased with it, mainly due to an excessive amount of vibrating and rattling.
The car in general vibrates a lot when idling under 1000 rpm. The steering wheel vibrates, the dash vibrates, the driver's seat vibrates, the gas pedal vibrates... it's enough to drive one batty in stop-and-go traffic. It's NOT an outrageous amount of vibrating, but definitely more than I would expect from a 2003 Toyota with low miles.
In addition to vibrating at low RPM, there are some rattles in the dash, under the glove compartment (inside the corrugated pipe that holds the ECU wire harness), and from within the passenger side door. These are actually more like vibrating buzzing sounds than mere rattles, and they can be quite annoying.
I took the car into the dealer, and he installed some foam insulation here and there. It fixed the dash noise, but none of the others. And the car itself still vibrates at low RPM.
I took it into another mechanic to check the engine and transmission mounts. They're all fine (as expected at 16K miles).
I'm at a loss. The dealer tells me this is normal. Is this true? My 97 Mitsubishi Mirage didn't vibrate like this, even after 100K miles, and that's a Mitsubishi!
Hi all. I'm new here. I recently bought a 2003 LE in excellent condition with only 16,000 miles. Unfortunately, I've been less than pleased with it, mainly due to an excessive amount of vibrating and rattling.
The car in general vibrates a lot when idling under 1000 rpm. The steering wheel vibrates, the dash vibrates, the driver's seat vibrates, the gas pedal vibrates... it's enough to drive one batty in stop-and-go traffic. It's NOT an outrageous amount of vibrating, but definitely more than I would expect from a 2003 Toyota with low miles.
In addition to vibrating at low RPM, there are some rattles in the dash, under the glove compartment (inside the corrugated pipe that holds the ECU wire harness), and from within the passenger side door. These are actually more like vibrating buzzing sounds than mere rattles, and they can be quite annoying.
I took the car into the dealer, and he installed some foam insulation here and there. It fixed the dash noise, but none of the others. And the car itself still vibrates at low RPM.
I took it into another mechanic to check the engine and transmission mounts. They're all fine (as expected at 16K miles).
I'm at a loss. The dealer tells me this is normal. Is this true? My 97 Mitsubishi Mirage didn't vibrate like this, even after 100K miles, and that's a Mitsubishi!
Please help! Thanks!
I have an 03S and outside of the engine being noisy till it warms up its a very quiet running car, sounds like you have some engine issues because excessive vibration will cause any car to start rattling in places...Start by getting an engine diagnostic check up!...good luck and keep us updated...~Radd
It's most noticable when I'm just sitting idle at a stop light. I wonder if it might be a timing / tuning issue. The vibration is very noticable at 1200 RPM, and then again at 800 RPM and below.
It's an automatic, BTW. I'll be taking it back to the dealer on Monday for the third time...
Well, I took it in this morning, and the service advisor said he thought the throttle body and fuel injection needed cleaning. I told him I already had the fuel injection service two weeks ago, so he said it had to be the throttle body. I asked him how sure he was that this would fix the vibration, and he said "pretty sure".
I got a call back in the afternoon telling me that the throttle body cleaning didn't fix the vibration. He then said it was normal in a Corolla to feel the engine vibration while idling because Corollas are small cars, and that there is nothing they can do about it.
At least he didn't charge me anything. I'm gonna try one other mechanic tomorrow...
I have a 2006 corolla le and mine is very quiet, little noise at high revs but this is normal, little noise on highway but again this is normal with every car
this is the first model yr change they did in a while with rollas and your bound to have a few problems but not like this.
I say get some more foam in their and pop the hood with car running- is their anhthing loose in the engine? Anythiung a little loose inside (radio, controls, etc).
I have heard some where, I think even on this forum.....that the 2003 models, at least some had a problem or defective engine mount that went bad, I can't remember whether it was the passenger or drive mount, but it was one of them...and what people did to solve the problem was just simply replace the mount...their cars also had low miles
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