Intermittent but bad misfire - help!

[grittle]

2004 Toyota 111R. 22,000 miles. Had the car a year, often doesn't pull cleanly from cold within yards of leaving the house, but has been running fine once it starts to warm up (ie within a few hundred yards of home).

Now it runs cleanly some of the time, others like it is not firing on all cylinders, hot or cold. Especially bad at 2000rpm and under load. Started playing up yesterday. Left the car idling this morning when I closed the garage door and it stalled. Stalled a couple of times when I was out when I came to a stop. Starts again okay. Was low on petrol - but not running on air - and filled it up anyway.

I've had the plugs out this morning: all clean. Regapped them to 28 thou. One of the coil packs (nearset offside) was a bit brown from rusty water and some crap round the outside of the plug.

What next? Change the plugs? Halfrauds list an NGK plug for the Elise but not the IFR6A11. Worth putting an OBD on to the car (anybody in Edin got one?)

Appreciate any help/guidance.

[robin]

Yes, if it's easy to reproduce then taking a run with someone in the pax seat and the OBD tool should show up which sensor is producing crap data.

Ali at SLS has the tool, obviously. I have one somewhere or other but haven't seen it in a while .. so not exactly sure where it is

Cheers,
Robin

[grittle]

Thanks Robin. I've not used an OBD and looking at buying one or worse making one (I've got the schematice know where I can get the bits) but probably would make sense to buy one.

I've had a very kind offer of help - car has warranty so I'd prefer to use the dealer that sold me the car - and would prefer to have some idea what is wrong before I take it to them. So I'll see if I can get an OBD hooked up and see what it says.

Any idea what it might be or are there many possible problems? Ran like a pig cold tonight trting to get it into my garage. It stalled half a dozen times but restarts easily.

[robin]

Mass Air Flow sensor would be my first guess for a 111R. For non-fly-by-wire cars, the Throttle Position Sensor would be second guess.

I have located my OBD interface, BTW - it needs a PC hooked up to it, but I have that too. So if you're stuck and in the Edinburgh area I'm sure we could work something out.

Cheers,
Robin

[grittle]

Thanks Robin - read some of your posts and well impressed with your knowledge.

Phoned Arnold Clark and to their credit they said they doubted they could fix it. 10/10 for honesty. Good news is the warranty can be used elsewhere so I'll see if I can get a garge to fix it as first port of call. Keep you posted, thanks again for the offer of help

[robin]

Try a Toyota garage - if they'll touch it - or MMC? If the warranty is paying anyway ...

Cheers,
Robin

[grittle]

Met Ali at SLS tonight. Very nice and helpful chap. So two codes apart from a misfire: P2647 and P2648 which are rocker arm actuator stuck on and control circuit low. Car will be going back. Thanks for your help again Robin