Hello-have a 1987 Toyota Celica, 2.0L 3SFE, automatic transmission, 108171 miles.
Late last month, my car would start up OK and run fine. However, after 5-10 minutes of residential driving (30 MPH speed limit streets) the car would hesitate when accelerating from a stop (stop sign, or stop light). It would hesitate for a few seconds and then pick up power again. Took my car into a mechanic for this and they had it for 4 days- couldn't get the car to present the problem. Brought the car home. A few days later, same issue happened, only this time, hesitation was bad enough that had to pull over. Turned car off, waited few minutes, then back on. Then when putting car into drive to pull away, car died- this happened twice. Had to tow car to the shop. Mechanic has had my car for a week now, says they drive my car daily, but car won't present issue. Diagnostic and Manuel checks show everything is OK
Don't want to randomly replace things, but something is causing the problem. Frustrating that car would hesitate with me each time, but after a week- good as gold with the mechanic.
Question- should I take my car to another mechanic?
This place says if I did, they wouldn't find anything either- they need the car to present the hesitation when they are driving it, so taking the car elsewhere would not help or change the issue.
The car has to hesitate when they are driving it in order to fix the problem.
Was it humid outside when your car hesitates?
@yaser
Not humid, but cool, low/mid 50's. Raining one time, no rain the next time. Only thing consistent is it happens when the car gets first run of the day/morning. I do park my car outside
Have you inspected the spark plug wiring? You can change them to see if you still have the issue. I had similar experience with a 1999 Corolla.
I haven't, but I can ask them to do this when I call the shop tomorrow.
Would an issue with the spark plug wiring cause the hesitation to present and then not present as it gets worse? They have had the car for a week now and it just won't hesitate for them.
They did say they believe the issue might be either electrical or possibly the distributor. They want it to hesitate for them before they replace anything.
My Ford had similar symptoms. Even when driving at a steady speed doing gentle accelerations would seem like motor was cutting out, bogging down, lost power. A new fuel filter helped some.
I asked them about the problem being the fuel pump and filter- believe they are original to the car.
They said that kind of check and replacement is expensive and labor intense, so they want to wait for the car to actually hesitate for them so they can confirm its the fuel pump and filter.
Would a failing fuel pump and/or dirty fuel filter cause issues randomly-on and off? The car has hesitated for me every time I have driven it in the last month- at least 2-3 times. But the mechanic has had the car for a week, drives it daily and the car has had no issues?