Question-------------------------
Followup To
Question -
Hello Ted, greetings from Shoreham-by-Sea on the south coast of England.
I have a 1991 Toyota Carina GL exec auto 2 litre which has done 140,000. It's in good nick, has been serviced regularly and has never really caused me a problem in the two years that I've had it.
Just recently, though, when the engine is hot it has developed a habit of cutting out and then clicking while stationary or when slowing down. It won't then restart for a short while.
I took it in for a service yesterday, told the garage about it, but they couldn't reproduce the fault and couldn't find anything wrong.
If you have any ideas I would be most grateful.
Kind regards
Neil Coppendale
Answer -
The engine cutting out, or misfire can be caused by worn spark plugs, spark plug wires and distributor cap and rotor failure, I suggest that at this time you give it a good tune up by replacing these items along with a new air filter and a fuel filter, not sure what the clicking sound is, do the tune up and see if the sitiuation improves and let me know.
Hello Ted, thanks for your trouble. The car has just had a service, with new plugs and checks. It didn't get a new fuel filter, though. I wonder if it could be that. It's not misfiring, just suddenly cutting out after it has warmed up and while stationary or slowing down and then won't re-start for a few minutes.
AnswerThanks for the additional info, it's beginning to sound like there may be a problem with the distributor itself, there are pickup coils and signal generators in them and a failure of one of them is not uncommon, the problem seems to be temperature related which is why I'm giving you this answer, as heat increases the resistance of an electronic component also increases and too much resistance in one of the components in the distributor will cause it to malfunction. Try replacing the distributor.
