# Car trouble, help! Toyota Corolla cranks, won't start.



## HumanFuseBen (Jan 4, 2014)

UUUUUGH car trouble is no bueno. So annoying.
So i have a 1997 Toyota Corolla that i've had for many years now. its got 190,000 on it, and i've never had any real issues with the car. Its been a total champ.
Wednesday, i drove the car and it was totally fine. Thursday, the temperature here in TN dropped a lot, and it pissed rain all day. I went to start my car that day, and the engine cranked just like always, but never quite started. Its sounded totally normal in terms of rhythm and sound it just wouldn't start! 
I read online that sometimes moisture in the distributor cap can cause that to happen on rainy days. So i took the cap off, and it seemed dry inside. I went over it with a paper towel to be sure there wasn't anything in there. The rotor looked okay too. Tried starting it again, no luck. Same deal.
A buddy at work told me that when i have the key in the 'on' position, i should be able to hear the fuel pump turn on. i tried that, and couldn't hear it. I also took the back seat cushion out so i could better hear it, and still no luck. But when i crank the engine, i can hear what i think is the fuel pump humming. After i stop trying to start it, i can hear that humming for another second or so, then it shuts off.
Yesterday and today, it hasn't rained, but the temperature has dropped even lower. I tried starting it again today, and it sounds super terrible! Really pitiful sounding. Its real hiccup-y, the rhythm sounds super jumpy, if that makes sense. Sounds bad. Very irregular. 
I can't figure this out. Is it possible its the timing belt? Could it have just happened to have bit the dust? I actually have never replaced the timing belt on it, which is kinda nuts.
Thoughts??? Thanks you all, this is driving me crazy at the moment.


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## dedsouth333 (Jan 4, 2014)

So there hasn't been any kind of spitting or sputtering before today? Little jerks while you're going down the road or pulling a hill or anything? While it was sitting and idling? Running certain speeds?


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## mr_rainmaker (Jan 4, 2014)

need 3 basic things for a car to run
air
fuel
spark

1st test pull out the air filter and try and start car
2nd have someone click your ignition on while listening for fuel pump to whirr
3rd test pull sparkplug and place in boot and then GROUND plug to a metal part of the engine while friend cranks car to see if you have spark

then get back to us...


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## matt397 (Jan 4, 2014)

Came in here to say spark plugs. The weather here where I am in southern ontario has every possible extreme you can think of an one thing I noticed that older cars hate is damp cold weather. Try new plugs. If that doesn't work hook it up to a diagnostic machine or, the cheaper way, grab a Hanes manual and check what codes it's firiing. It will show you in the manual how to bring the codes up but if I had to guess (I've had about 4 cars in that same age range) you roll the ignition to on, then roll it back an forth 2 or 3 times between on and accessory and the check engine light will flash in a series reflecting the numerical code (3 flashes for 03, 4 flashes for 04) the codes are usually 4-6 digits long, write down the code and reference it to the manual and it should have it listed.


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## bcolville (Jan 5, 2014)

There's are few things on the internet that you can't ask about for solutions. This might be one of them. Maybe take it to a shop instead of other people guessing?


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## M3CHK1LLA (Jan 5, 2014)

was hoping to see pics of an ae86...


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## Rosal76 (Jan 5, 2014)

Start simple when looking for car problems.

How is the condition of your car battery? An old car battery mixed in with cold weather can make it harder/or not at all for your car to start. If you can, take your car battery to a car parts store (Autozone, Napa, Pep Boys, etc, etc, etc,) or a auto repair store and ask them to test your car battery. They will not charge you anything for testing a car battery. If your car battery is insufficient (cannot hold power or whatever), then you should definately buy a new one. Even if the car battery is not the problem for your car not starting, you will at least eliminate the "unsufficient car battery suspicion".


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## Baelzebeard (Jan 5, 2014)

Could be spark plug wires too. Remember to replace them one at a time don't ask how I know that's a good idea.


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## HumanFuseBen (Jan 5, 2014)

awesome, thank you all for the suggestions! It drives me nuts that it could be so many things&#8230;. ugh. overwhelming.


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## tyler_faith_08 (Jan 5, 2014)

Stop.



> need 3 basic things for a car to run
> air
> fuel
> spark


Correct.



> 1st test pull out the air filter and try and start car
> 2nd have someone click your ignition on while listening for fuel pump to whirr
> 3rd test pull sparkplug and place in boot and then GROUND plug to a metal part of the engine while friend cranks car to see if you have spark


1. Filters don't go bad overnight. If it ran the day before and doesn't run now that it's colder, it's even less likely that a clogged filter would cause that big a problem because the air is more dense. Furthermore, it wouldn't sound normal like it did the first day if it wasn't moving air.

2. If the car has a pump that is less than a few weeks old or one that's over ~6 months, you can hear it. If you have 190k miles and you can't hear it, your pump is either bad or isn't getting a correct signal. The best option is to disconnect the starter and turn the key to the start position. Everything else goes off in the cab of the car and you can hear it very well. 

3. Good practice. Furthermore, visual inspection can be used to determine the state of the engine and supporting systems.




> How is the condition of your car battery? An old car battery mixed in with cold weather can make it harder/or not at all for your car to start


A bad battery wouldn't allow the engine to turn over like OP described it did on day 1. Now the battery may in fact be dead now, but replacing the battery won't fix anything and if it does, it will also indicate another problem. 

I'd start with visually inspecting the plugs. If they're wet or even look like they have any moisture, this is from the fuel not being burned. In your case, you either have plugs that are dry and cardboard-dark brown or plugs that are black and wet.

Get a friend to crank the car with the plug sitting against the nearest ground.

Dry and spark: no fuel
Dry and no spark: no fuel and ignition trouble. AKA, likely a ground issue at the ECU or relay box. Not likely with a distributor setup.
Wet and spark: too much fuel or too weak of a spark. Potentially fouled plugs. Replace.
Wet and no spark: fouled and likely need to be replaced. Ignition trouble.


If you don't have spark, you might just have a bad or rusted connection. The distributor may have a ground issue as well. 

It is very likely that if you aren't getting fuel, it will be either the ECU, blown fuse, bad fuel pressure regulator, cracked line, or bad pump. Very rarely do pumps develop a bad connection as most wiring for them is sealed and ran within the cab of the car. 

Also, get a multimeter. (you can get a cheap one from auto zone for $20 and they are useful for various purposes) Turn your car off and disconnect the ground on the battery. Touch the lads between the cable and the negative terminal. If it reads anything other than 0.00, you probably have a short or a bad relay somewhere. 

A common sensor to go bad is the MAF sensor. Though it shouldn't keep your car from starting, it can. Google MAF (your car here) and find it on Google images. Disconnect the leads and it'll throw the car into safe mode (retard the ignition and add fuel), but only once it's running. If it starts without it, you either have a bad connection or a bad MAF ($180-320 for different models) 

CAS (cam OR crank angle sensor) can go bad with rapid temperature changes on an old unit. A multimeter here will also give you an answer.

Basically, answer these questions:

-Are your fuses all good?
-Can you take a picture of your spark plugs? (one from the first and last and one from the middle 2 should suffice)
-do your fuel lines (if they're rubber) have more pressure on them after you turn the key on than before?

If these all check out, I'll have some more for you. I'll be coming through Tennessee in about a month. If you still have trouble then, I'll stop by if you aren't too far out of the way.


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## Force (Jan 5, 2014)

Contaminated fuel?


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## HumanFuseBen (Jan 5, 2014)

HUZZAH! All it needed was a new set of spark plugs! The old ones were completely shot to shit, they looked awful! They may have been the originals that came in the car in 1997 hahaha&#8230; anyway, thanks so much for all the help, everyone!


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## HumanFuseBen (Jan 5, 2014)

tyler_faith_08 said:


> Stop.
> 
> Correct.
> 
> ...


and thank you for this especially informative post! Very well-written and informed. Thank you!!!


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## tyler_faith_08 (Jan 6, 2014)

If the plugs jsut went bad like that, I'd look at the functionality of your fuel pressure regulator. Generally, plugs only really go bad with something to catalyze the event, like too much fuel. Oh, I'd also like to recommend that you go to auto zone and get a spark plug gap tool (<$5) and pull the plugs back out and set them to about .035" or just under 1mm. If they're gapped too large, they can foul much easier. The rule of thumb for plugs is the maximum allowable gap possible before misfire (car starts to miss under full throttle) for better fuel economy and performance, minus about .075" for non-high performance engines. 

I'd only recommend it for your car because it does have 190k miles on it and the ignition system likely has a fair amount of wear. If you don't, it should still run fine, but you may run into this problem again much sooner if you don't.


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## drgamble (Jan 6, 2014)

tyler_faith_08 said:


> If the plugs jsut went bad like that, I'd look at the functionality of your fuel pressure regulator. Generally, plugs only really go bad with something to catalyze the event, like too much fuel. Oh, I'd also like to recommend that you go to auto zone and get a spark plug gap tool (<$5) and pull the plugs back out and set them to about .035" or just under 1mm. If they're gapped too large, they can foul much easier. The rule of thumb for plugs is the maximum allowable gap possible before misfire (car starts to miss under full throttle) for better fuel economy and performance, minus about .075" for non-high performance engines.
> 
> I'd only recommend it for your car because it does have 190k miles on it and the ignition system likely has a fair amount of wear. If you don't, it should still run fine, but you may run into this problem again much sooner if you don't.



OP came back and said they may be original plugs with 190K miles on them. That some dang good spark plugs if you ask me, but I don't see how it would be impossible for them to go bad with a sudden dip in temps like we have all been seeing. Anyway, glad OP got it fixed and got out cheap on this one. If OP hasn't ever changed the timing belt in this thing, I would say it is about time. Usually, they should be changed every 100K miles. This is something you should have done soon, as a timing belt failure can be somewhat catastrophic and do some major engine damage. Hopefully, OP changed the distributor cap and wires while he was at it.


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## tyler_faith_08 (Jan 9, 2014)

drgamble said:


> OP came back and said they may be original plugs with 190K miles on them. That some dang good spark plugs if you ask me, but I don't see how it would be impossible for them to go bad with a sudden dip in temps like we have all been seeing. Anyway, glad OP got it fixed and got out cheap on this one. If OP hasn't ever changed the timing belt in this thing, I would say it is about time. Usually, they should be changed every 100K miles. This is something you should have done soon, as a timing belt failure can be somewhat catastrophic and do some major engine damage. Hopefully, OP changed the distributor cap and wires while he was at it.



Meh, it's sort of a tough subject. Generally, plugs won't go bad without an inducer for several hundred thousand miles. They only really go bad from tip erosion (lean, pre-ignition, detonation) or fouling (fuel coating from either wrong SP heat range, but typically by rich running conditions) or from contact with the piston (which didn't happen in OP's case).

If you notice, newer cars don't have this problem. Generally, the problem exists (with EFI equipped cars for these issues) with these:

weak FPR - allows too much fuel, especially when cold and compounds with deteriorated function

Piston pitting - comes from detonation (too low octane for the setup) which will allow fuel to accumulate. Runs cooler on startup, hotter when running

Weak CAS or CPS - tells the injectors to fire at the wrong time, causing the O2S to throw a fault, adding more fuel, then retrieving the fault, subtracting fuel, and does this constantly

Clogged exhaust - keeps unburned fuel within the engine longer, adding to the fuel saturation within the cylinder, promoting fouling. Characterized by difficult starting, low performance, quick engine warming

IAT (inlet air temp sensor) out of spec - can add much more fuel than is required for temperature (lower temps require more fuel). Can also not add enough fuel to start cyclic operation. This still results in fuel being added, but not enough fuel to induce operation. The consistent flow of unburned fuel (even though in normal or close to normal amounts) can foul the plug

ALL of these get worse with cold weather and older cars.

There are quite a few more, but working on cars is like treating an infection. You can treat the symptoms over and over, or you can dive deeper and solve the true problem and never treat the symptoms again, or at least until a new infection arises. Sometimes, you have several different problems that present with the same symptoms, and sometimes you have a very insignificant problem that only presents a major symptom from time to time (like a spark plug).

It kind of gets to a point where you change plugs every few hundred miles before you realize that maybe the plugs aren't the problem, only the part you see. 

It's kind of a weird thing, really. I build and repair high performance engines in my off time. Any time that I have a problem with a performance engine, I always check the plugs because they can tell you A LOT about how your engine is running. Won't start and plugs are tan, check fuel. Won't start and plugs are black, check for too much fuel and check ignition. Plugs are all tan except for one, you likely have a bad cylinder or piston or valve(s). Plugs are (from front to back) tan, black, black, light tan, you likely blew a head gasket. Plugs have little white specs, add octane or reduce compression or reduce ignition advance. Plug has significant erosion, check internals for pre-ignition damage. And the list goes on and on and on... I've never purchased a used anything without checking the plug(s).

Since plugs are directly in contact with the atmosphere that is created by the combustion process, which is affected by every major engine management system, and since all the right things just so happen in a way that allow us to tell what's going on, they become much more useful than just providing their primary function.


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