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By rock1911a1, December 15, 2009 in Pre-1997 Toyota Corolla and Geo Prizm



My daughter parked the car in the driveway one afternoon and the next morning it wouldn't crank. When I carried it o the shop, it would only fire on two cylinders. My mechanic has checked all fuses, compression, replaced the distributor, cap, rotor, plug wires, timing belt, and everything he knows to check and it still will not crank. I even called the local Toyota dealer and spoke to their Toyota Guru and he is stumped as to why it won't crank. Any suggestions guys? Thanks for your help.

If the car isn't cranking, why even replace the cap, rotor, and spark plug wires?

It sounds like the starter is dead, or maybe the solenoid is out.

"Cranking" is when you turn the key and the starter motor rotates the engine. A car can crank and not even have spark plugs installed or fuel in the tank.

If the car isn't cranking, why even replace the cap, rotor, and spark plug wires?

 

It sounds like the starter is dead, or maybe the solenoid is out.

"Cranking" is when you turn the key and the starter motor rotates the engine. A car can crank and not even have spark plugs installed or fuel in the tank.

[The engine will spin over. It has compression, fuel pressure and unrestricted air flow. The engine is in time and the cam is not broken, but it will only fire on cylinders 3 and 4. 1 and 2 will not fire. That is why we replaced the distributor, for a test. We are running out of things to test

[The engine will spin over. It has compression, fuel pressure and unrestricted air flow. The engine is in time and the cam is not broken, but it will only fire on cylinders 3 and 4. 1 and 2 will not fire.

Oil could be collecting in the spark plug wells, shorting them out. Have you made sure to test for a spark at each secondary wire (detached from the spark plug)? If they're sparking strongly, then the plugs themselves may be shorted out. The plugs may also be inserted improperly and you're not getting enough compression for the mixture to ignite well.

I'm not exactly sure what engine that vehicle has, or its ignition system-- but if it uses coil packs it may be that one pack is shared between two cylinders, and that particular coil pack that failed is shared between cylinders 1 and 2 (I would have expected a shared coil pack to work with two non-sequential cylinders, so that one pack works with cylinders 1 and 4, and the other with cylinders 3 and 2).

It has only one coil and supposedly it tested good. Now they are telling me it is either the ECM or the coil. I had to pick the car up from the shop or leave it there until after New Years, hope to have it running before then. I bought an ECM to replace mine but cannot locate the old one. The Toyota place says it's under the steering wheel or behind the glove box, not sure where. I still haven't located it. If this doesn't start it, I'll replace the coil. If that doesn't do it, then the Toyota place will get this headache! Any more suggestions? Thanks guys.



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