I parked my car at the airport over the weekend, and when I got back from my trip it was cold outside. When I pulled up to the parking pay booth and stopped, instead of idling at 800 rpm, the tach was bouncing between 1000-2000 rpm and wouldn't stop.... I got freaked out and I revved a little and it went away.. but this worries me. I have 77k miles and it's a 99 TL. Anyone know what's up?

 

don't worry until it happens again. like you siad, it was cold and the car had been sitting for a while - I imagine this means the car wasn't running at temp when you got to the pay booth.

I'd guess your oil and other fluids weren't flowing as normal so you saw the odd behavior.

 

check you cruise control and throttle cables to see if you have anything sticking, lube w/ some w-d 40

 

When I first start up the car in the morning, after leaving it overnight parked in our garage, and the car is still in park, the car idles between 1250-1300RPM's. As soon as I put the car into reverse or drive, the RPM's should drop to a normal level (600-800 RPM's). One thing you will notice when the car is cold, is it will shift late. You will feel the shifting to be a bit rough. This is also normal. It is caused by the grade logic unit in the transmission. By doing this, it keeps the RPM's elevated for a longer amount of time in order to cool off the engine quicker.

 

I've had a similar phenomenon happen twice. I seem to recall it was going to higher RPMs though. Both times, the car was cold and I started it and went back in the house. When I came outside it was reving to (I'd guess) about 3000 RPMs then dropping back down to normal idle. It was doing this repeatedly.

I'm about to bring it in the shop to get several routine maintenance items done. I guess I could have him lube the throttle cable, though that seems unlikely to cause my problem. Any other ideas that could cause the repeated reving that I'm getting?

 

The problem isnt a throttle cable. Its your IAC sticking a little. Do a search for IAC cleaning and clean it yourself. Its very easy. 30 min or so.

 

^^^ I agree. IAC valve is the most likely culprit.

 

You can't search for 3-letter words in the forum search. What other words might I look for?

 

Thats IAC all the way..same thing happened on my Honda Accord. Problem with mine was it was loose and got a long screwdriver and tightened the little disk thing..I think the TLs are different.

 

Add the word cleaning or valve to it

 

Oh yeah, I didn't think to put quotes around the whole thing.