Scotty, I just purchased a 03 Toyota Camry with 58,000 miles. I made the purchase after hearing about Toyota’s reliability. The car runs good but at times under certain throttle conditions the transmission seems to hunt for gears, when I take off from a stop light and am a bit heavy on the throttle it will act like it wants to go from second to third but will act like it drops into neutral before upshifting. It only does this sometimes and from doing my own research on the internet it appears this was a common issue not only in these Camry but also the Lexus es300 with this trans. The consensus being that it is a bad programming in the ecm and not a hardware one. What is your take on this? I really want to get this Toyota to the high mileage club and have already done the timing belt myself. It should still be a baby by Toyota standards! Please help!
Toyota had an issue with their 5 speed transmission where sometimes you would hit the gas and there would be a delay of a few seconds. It was a combination of the ECU and the drive by wire system. It is not an issue that affects the longevity of the car. It is more of an annoyance than anything else and it is something that you just live with.
It’s not so much a delay that I am experiencing, it is more like under certain rpm ranges going from a dead stop, when the car should change from second to third it will sometimes feel like the trans disengages from the drivetrain or is between gears, then it will catch and accelerate. If I am heavy on the accelerator or very light on it this does not happen.