Hello, I warn in advance I’m not a mechanic. Just a mom with low budget to repair my college students 2000 TL w/135,000. The car has run great over the last year, but occasionally would have a hesitation while driving, as if it lost power but would then accelerate and drive fine. Twice it would not start, but after it sat a while, it would start and run fine. The issue is/was intermittent. We have taken it to three different mechanics.
Two told us they couldn’t find anything. We would have to drive it and bring it back when the problem recurred.
One shop got misfire code #1,4,and 5. He cleared code and car ran fine. he removed egr valve checked for clogged ports and reinstalled. Told us to see if it helped. He told us while it was unlikely these issues were causing the problem the following items should be corrected:
Engine has 2 broken engine mounts,
rear main seal is leaking oil.
Transmission fluid was dirty
That was a year ago
my husband recently discover the drivers side floor had a large wet spot, he assumed some fluid was leaking inside the car. We took it to mechanic who told us he thought it was water from somewhere, maybe the windshield. We can’t find any water leaks near windshield and have had no more wet carpet.
Couple weeks ago the car began running very rough, loss of power, seemed like it didn’t want to go in gear between 2nd 3rd. Check engine, tcs lights came on. My husband thought it was transmission, took it to transmission shop who told us the computer was bad, they couldn’t get reading. We would have to get it fixed before they could help us. When we went to pick it up, battery was dead. They jumped it off, car ran great for few days. Mean while
I found this wonderful site. I read threads of cars with similar issues and suggested to clean egr and ? Thing ? with brake fluid. Husband YouTubed instructions and cleaned. They were very dirty but as far as he could tell they were not clogged.
Car ran great again but soon lights came on again issue was back intermittently.
I Found thread about clearing out codes, husband did that. The car is currently running great! Since the car is running so well and we cleared codes I thought we should take it to Advance Auto store to have ECU checked. They still can’t get reading. It does connect but then gives an error reading. Just to be sure we took it to Auto Zone, they couldn’t get a reading either.
although the car is running good now, we don’t feel it’s dependable and fear a major issue is coming.
We haven’t found a mechanic who seems interested in getting to the bottom of the issue. ( probably because their time would make it too expensive for such an old car) It seems there are several master mechanics on here, IMO. Could anyone suggest out next move? Even if we need to take it to a mechanic, I would like to know what to suggest they check or at least be familiar with what the possible issues may be.
Could broken motor mounts cause this?
Could the ECU BE BAD IF EVERYTHING IS WORKING NOW?
Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions