Dash Light ON

[kiwi17]

The engine dash light of my 99 Toyota Echo came on a while ago. Toyota couldn't give me an answer without having to take the whole engine out $$$??? Another mechanic plugged it into a diagnostic machine and a message "Idle Error" appeared. No-one seems to know what this message means or the cause. The car has intermittent flat spots - sometimes runs pretty well and other times, I really have to drive it hard in 3rd gear to get it up highway hills.

Can anyone offer any clues to the cause of this problem? Is it the computer playing-up, is it sensors? Do I have to renew every part one by one??

[Guni]

Idling control valve?

Dirty injectors?

[kiwi17]

Idling control valve?

Dirty injectors?

Thanks for your help - much appreciated.

Injectors have already been checked - all fine.

Pulled Idling Control Valve apart yesterday and cleaned with carby cleaner. Not sure if it is working OK. Someone else said I should feel vibration but I couldn't detect anything except a couple of air bubbles, as it was full of carby cleaner to detect movement.

Car still runs very poorly. Do I need to clear the error message before I see a change?

[kiwi17]

Thanks for your help - much appreciated.

Injectors have already been checked - all fine.

Pulled Idling Control Valve apart yesterday and cleaned with carby cleaner. Not sure if it is working OK. Someone else said I should feel vibration but I couldn't detect anything except a couple of air bubbles, as it was full of carby cleaner to detect movement.

Car still runs very poorly. Do I need to clear the error message before I see a change?

[Guni]

I also had a similar problem with fouled sparks .... maybe check those?

Dodgy fuel?

Once you done all these maybe try plugging out the battery to give the ECU a full reset.

[rob323]

It it idles properly at 650 rpm when hot and doesn't stall when cold, then the ISC is fine.

Flat spots in an Echo are usually caused my a dirty MAF sensor.

See here for how to clean it - http://echodiy.multiply.com/journal/item/4..._Filter_and_MAF

Or, if you on the Northside of Brisbane, you are welcome to pop over and I'll show you how to do it.

If you have the security codes for the radio, I would also do as suggested and disconnect the battery for a while to reset the ecu. It will seem a bit sluggish at first though while it relearns things.

[kiwi17]

Idle speed control motor was faulty. Replaced with second-hand part, cleaned the MAF and my Echo goes like a little rocket again! Yippee!!

Thanks everyone for your help - you saved me a lot of time and money - and hopefully this experience will help someone else in the future.

[rob323]

Idle speed control motor was faulty. Replaced with second-hand part, cleaned the MAF and my Echo goes like a little rocket again! Yippee!!

Thanks everyone for your help - you saved me a lot of time and money - and hopefully this experience will help someone else in the future.

Good to hear you got it sorted. When I finally put my car back together after being apart for 3 years, my isc was stuck. It would stall when cold and idle all over the place when hot but it still pulled normally (no lack of power or flat spots). So I pulled apart my spare isc and cleaned it all up but never installed it as it luckily sorted itself out after a few months and has been fine every since (touch wood).

People running oiled air filters have to be careful and clean their maf often as they get a coating of oil residue on them so avoid an oiled airfilter on an Echo/ Yaris if at all possible.

[pegaxs]

Wash having a similar problem to this... car starts up and is very sluggish. Turning off A/C only helped a little. Once the car was warmed up and running, ran better.

I thought just as a trial on my quest to find out why my car was like driving through custard on start up, i would do this MAF clean. Very easy to do. WOW! what a difference it made. The whole MAF sensor was coated in oil and crap. Cleaned it all off and now car runs like new again. Dont know why i never thought of doing this earlier. Just used to Euro cars at work that either use MAP or the MAF sensor cannot be disassembled as easy os this one for cleaning :)

Thanks for the info.