'01 Corolla Start Problem

The car is an '01 Corolla CE, with 60k.

When starting the car in the morning, it runs rough, and behaves like
it's using only about half of it's cylinders. Sometimes it stalls. When
it doesn't, I have to nurse the gaxs pedal to get the idle up, and to
get the car moving. Once the idle is up, the car performs well. It runs
great, and doesn't stall at stops.

Throughout the day, there's a 50/50 chance that it will do this again,
even when the car has only been sitting for as little as 45 minutes.

It's been to a tech twice, and of course the car wouldn't exibit the
behavior I was experiencing. Thei solution was to clean out the
throttle body, an air/idle control device, and a new air filter.

Any advice would be great. I don't think it's fuel filter related or
the performance would suffer when driving as well. Not sure about
ignition because of the same; once it's been nursed to the right idle,
and gets moving a little bit, it runs fine.

Thanks,

Bill Graham
Durham, NC

"Bill Graham" <whgraham@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:1125520083.647794.82770@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...[color=blue]
> The car is an '01 Corolla CE, with 60k.
>
> When starting the car in the morning, it runs rough, and behaves like
> it's using only about half of it's cylinders. Sometimes it stalls. When
> it doesn't, I have to nurse the gaxs pedal to get the idle up, and to
> get the car moving. Once the idle is up, the car performs well. It runs
> great, and doesn't stall at stops.
>
> Throughout the day, there's a 50/50 chance that it will do this again,
> even when the car has only been sitting for as little as 45 minutes.
>
> It's been to a tech twice, and of course the car wouldn't exibit the
> behavior I was experiencing. Thei solution was to clean out the
> throttle body, an air/idle control device, and a new air filter.
>
> Any advice would be great. I don't think it's fuel filter related or
> the performance would suffer when driving as well. Not sure about
> ignition because of the same; once it's been nursed to the right idle,
> and gets moving a little bit, it runs fine.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bill Graham
> Durham, NC
>[/color]

I think you are going to have to leave the car overnight so that the tech
can experience the symptoms. The cause will be either air, fuel, or
ignition related, and the only way to confirm is to check those things while
the symptoms are present. Cleaning the idle air control valve and map
sensor sometimes fixes this problem, but the other possibility is the fuel
pressure regulator. Hooking up a fuel pressure gauge beforehand can verify
this.
--
Ray O
correct the return address punctuation to reply