It was 5 degrees out this morning so I decided to warm my car up for a few minutes before driving to work. I didnt have any issues when starting the car but when I got in the car and put in reverse, I noticed the engine was shaking. When I put it in drive and stepped on the gas, I knew something was obviously wrong. The engine started shaking while accelerating and the acceleration was very choppy. This has happened to me once before and the dealer replaced the engine coil pack (probably within the last 10k-15k miles). When they say "coil pack", do they mean one coil, or all 6? If it is just one, I would think that one of the other ones went bad.

I'm thinking of taking the car to AutoZone or Pep Boys to see if they can pull any codes from my car but my CEL light isn't on. I'm not sure if it's required in order to get (meaningful) codes from the car though. The last time I drove the car was yesterday and it was driving very well so it's odd that I'm having this problem today.

I should probably mention that I had an issue last week where my AC broke and it smelt like something was buring when I got out of my car.

Here's the link to the thread:
https://acurazine.com/forums/ramblings-12/space-signal-studied-alien-contact-152696/

Any ideas?

 

could be the tranny... when did u replace it.... there is an issue where if u put the car in reverse and here a clonk and any unsual activity.... the tranny is acting up.....

i'm here in toronto canada, weather is about -38 fahrenheit... and starts up perfectly fine... drives perfectly fine.. i'm always reversing to get out of my parking lot at work and i dont hear anything..... ... and if ur getting choppy acceleration.. i think it might be the tranny since when u start the engine, ur not really switching gears, therefore not really using the tranny to find any symptoms.. now i could be totally wrong.. just my 2 cents.

 

I just started the car and felt the engine shaking even while in park. I guess since I wasn't in the car while it was warming up, I didn't feel the shaking. I wonder why the CEL didn't come on?

 

I just wanted to post the solution to this problem. It was another engine coil that went bad. I bought one from the dealer and replaced one at a time until I found it.

It's an easy fix. I got the coil at the dealer for $72 bucks (it's $45 online but I wanted to get it done today).

 

I think I might have experience the same issue. Upon turning the engine on (already warmed up) the engine was "shaking" and I could feel some sharp "pings" from inside the car.

After a few seconds of this rough idling, the engine stalled. 2nd time, same thing. 3rd time, started out rough, then after a few seconds smoothed out and was fine. No CEL was ever triggered. The TCS light was on while the engine was idling rough.

Now, two days later, it hasn't happened since.

99 TL, 132k miles

 

Hi,

I know the issue you are referring to but I don't believe this is it. With a bad engine coil, your engine would not smooth out at all and the roughness would occur when the engine is cold, too.

I have only experienced the problem you are referring to about a dozen times throughout the years I've owened this car and have not found a solution to this problem. Giving the engine some gas doesn't seem to help if you're in park. The only way to get it going without having it stall that I have found is to give it some gas such that the RPM's are around 800, put it in drive, and start driving for a bit. It will eventually go back to normal. I don't like recommending this though since it might put you in a dangerous situation if the engine stalled while moving and you lost steering/brake power.

 

Hmm okay. The problem hasn't occurred again since last Friday. Here's another question that *might* be related:

When I start the engine (already warm) the RPMs seem to drop a bit, then within 5-10 seconds it will level out to the normal idling RPM. Obviously when the engine is cold, it idles higher until it's warm, so there's no issue at that time. Any idea what the problem may be? Or even if it's a problem?

 

...could have beed a little water in the fuel system.
This may occur when the tank is not full and the temp drops and warms again.
J