Difficulty Starting and Sluggish Acceleration

Hi, I'm new to the forums but I've had a Tacoma for about 2 years now. Its been a great truck and hasn't had any problems till recent. Basically whats going on is I occasionally have problems starting when I turn the key I sometimes get a click or it just turns over once and then stops. If I turn it back off and go again it will usually start right up after a few attempts. I just replaced the battery a week ago thinking all the cold weather had worn out my other one. But it still has the problem.
Also on even rarer occasions but it seems to be becoming more frequent is that once I start it up my brake light comes on and the engine has a terrible rattle to it. At this point the truck acts almost like its driving through two feet of mud. The parking break isn't on so its not like I've forgotten about it, in fact I never use the parking break. The check engine light also comes on from time to time its not always on but it will go away for a week and then come back for a few days then turn off again.
Any help would be appreciated thanks.

 

How many miles on it? Have you ever cleaned out the throttle body?

 

if you turn it over and it just clicks once . . . . then change out your distributor cap and rotor ( i do believe you still have one on a 97 5vz right ?)

i had this happen on my 95 3rz and it got to the point where it wouldn't just not turn over at all . . . . changed out the rotor ( which was worn badly) and dist cap and it worked great . . . .


now go get that CEL scanned for free at autozone and tell us what the code is . . . . also whens the last time you did a total tune up ? new plugs, wires, dist and rotor ?

sounds to me like this is all caused by that . . . .


as for your brake light coming on . . . . check your fluid in your holder to make sure its full . . . . and my ebrake light comes on just because the connection is lose below the dash i just have to learn to deal with it

 

I have about 160,000 miles on the truck so far. I haven't done any kind of tune up since I've owned it so I'll go ahead and give that a try. I also took it in and had the code pulled and he said that I had a bad O2 sensor that needed to be replaced. Thanks for the help I'll see if the tune up helps anything.

 

iight keep us posted on what it is . . .

and check out www.urdusa.com for the cheapest o2 sensors that are denso (oem) plug and play

 

give the intake a good cleaning before you start your tuneup. Use Seafoam.

 

Hey thanks I'll take car of the tune up this week and see how that goes. Also whats the best way to get seafoam into the intake I tried that about a week ago and didn't have much success with it. I'm sure there's a thread on it already if I take a look around.

 

try using search

 

find a vac hose going to the intake....it will work, or use the brake booster line, either will do the trick. also, get some seafoam deep creep and spray/clean the throttle body, even the pcv valve also. let us know how it goes.

 

get your post count a lil higher then you can tell people to use the search button



use the brake booster . . . works best but be sure and do it BEFORE you change everything out ie plugs and what not . . . . it has a tendency to foul plugs . . .

and just follow the instructions on the side of the can is all i did