Dear Scotty
I am a new driver that got my license recently and have limited to 0 knowledge on cars. I purchased a Toyota Highlander 2009 awd base version for 7000 usd back in november 2022. since February the car sometimes, idles low at startup but then recalibrates to around 600-800 rpm. I have a cheap obd scanner and it doesnt throw any codes. However I have no idea on the live data. I currently live in Oregon and it is snowing. Today, I started my car, it was a cold start and the engine stalled for the first time ever on startup. Tried again and it works fine. the car drives fine and had made trips to LA, san francisco without issues (5-10 hour drives)
for the period of ownership, I have cleaned the maf sensor, changed air filters, cabin filters. It threw a p0171+p0174 code back in december but after i changed the filter+ reset the computer by disconnecting the negative terminal+ step on brakes 3 times it never came back.
However I am really worried about the stalling issue and fear of having to take the car apart in order to fix the issue. I studied your videos overnight and want to ask, if the stalling is related to the fuel pump, fuel filter, IAC valve, throttle body or something else
Thank you for your time reading through this and any suggestions/ directions would be greatly appreciated
cordially
Joseph
- Well, it could be lots of things. If you don't know how to analyze live data, pay a mechanic like me to look up his giant scan to a run it, watch it stall and look at the live data to try to figure out what aspect is going wrong. But for my experience with Toyota's, if the map sensor is good they do go bad and they can do that. But if it's good, it could easily be a vacuum leak somewhere in the system. You can watch some of my various videos on finding vacuum leaks using smoke machines
