My car has a hard time starting randomly? Sometimes it starts fine and other times it is a struggle

MBERARDINELI

MEMBER
2006 TOYOTA SIENNA
57,000 MILES

The car was diagnosed by a mechanic as having a "gummed up" throttle body. After resetting the computer on the vehicle, it continued to have issues with starting randomly. I brought the van back to the mechanic, and he stated that it would be a reset of the computer, or a bad throttle body? I still am having issues with it starting. Sometimes fine, other times I almost need to press the gas pedal to start it.

3 Replies

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

Clean the throttle plate and idle air control valve with choke cleanr. Clean it on both sides the vehicle will start hard after you do this. Then check your fuel pressure. YOu dont' need to "reset" the computer, that s a bunch of crap. Also find another mechanic that knows what they are doing

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Thursday, October 27th, 2011 AT 1:48 PM

MBERARDINELI

MEMBER
2 POSTS

Thank you. I actually failed to mention that he cleaned the throttle body during the first visit. It has not made any difference since then, and he now is stating it could be a faulty throttle body. He could not determine this without sending us to the dealer.

Would this make sense?

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Thursday, October 27th, 2011 AT 7:03 PM

HMAC300

MECHANIC
48,601 POSTS

Like I said, find anothermechanic that knows what he is doing. This car shold havebeen scanned for engine codes dn the fuel pressure checked at the very least BEFORE any work was performed. You still should reclean it and make sure the the idle air control valve is cleaned through the hole as well. That'ssomething you can do, it's on the throttle body. You can go to diy section on site here under tune up. It's usually an oblong hole

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Thursday, October 27th, 2011 AT 7:50 PM