Hi All,

Recently I have been noticing my engine does not seem as smooth as it once was and I was hoping that perhaps someone on this board has had similar problems and was able to resolve them.

My car has about 76k miles on it and the engine does not seem to idle properly. After warming up my car, I notice that the idle is lower than it used to be and the engine seems rough (like it wants to shut off). The only problem I have had with idling other than this was when I start a hot engine. In this case, the engine jumps to about 1200rpms and drops to about 500 and the engine shakes. It will rise if I turn the A/C on, turn the steering wheel or just put it in drive and start moving. This has been happening since about 20k miles and has never been fixed dispite numerous trips to the dealer. I have given up on this problem.

The second engine issue is when I'm accelerating. I'm beginning to notice that when accelerating with engine RPM's over 2500, the engine makes gargling noises. Perhaps this is just the engine starting to age. I haven't floored my car in years but I did it this weekend and it was not a good experience. The engine was not consistant at all in terms of power or engine speed increases. It was very choppy which leads me to think that there is something else wrong with my car.

I would appreciate if anyone could give me some advice on what I can try to resolve these issues.

Cheers,
Rosh

 

wow man I can say that is NOT normal at all, cause I have 80000 miles on my '99 and it is smoooooth. Maybe do some normal maintenance - new plugs, how is your battery?, some good fuel injector cleaner, how is your air filter?...check stuff like that. I know the idle isnt always perfect on our cars, and they seem very sensitive to temperature changes.

 

My 99 TL had low idle issues until I cleaned out the intake and trottle body...do a search on this

 

I had an idle problem also on my 99 tl at 45,000 km along with the check engine light coming on. Took the car to the dealer 5 times before they fixed the problem. The dealer fix was using higher octane fuel to changing the plugs. They spent a day looking for the problem on the 5th visit and found it when they did a compression test on the cylinders.
One cylinder was about 60 psi less than the other 5. I was told it could be valves to heads. As it turned out one of the valve nut had worked itself loose.

 

Have you tried cleaning the throttle body? Two other cars I had (not the TL) had a problem very similar to the first one you listed...I had to keep the throttle body cleaned every week otherwise they would stall everytime I stopped. Just my

 

Hi guys,

Thanks for your replies. I have recently done everything you guys mentioned. I changed my plugs and battary about 5k miles ago. I use fuel injector cleaner and replace my air filter every 7500k and cleaned out my throttle body last weekend and still no change. It's really frustrating because I love the car but I hate driving it. I like driving our 94 Accord EX with 200k+ miles on it more than the TL.

Chow-Chow, maybe a compression test might be worth looking into... Anyone know how much the dealer would charge for something like this?

Thanks again,
Rosh