Hello. I have a 1999 Toyota Avalon xls. It has a rough idle most the time.
What is your question?
Car revs high during starting idle for a few min. Idle is rough almost like a misfire but random cadence to it. Related to this in some way possibly is a medium fuel smell from exhaust. 3 plugs replaced by me in front recently. Gas mileage is poor now from what it was a year ago. I'm trying to find enough data online to figure out the most inexpensive way and the proper order of steps to take to diagnose problem/s. I thought maybe buy a cheap obd2 for codes first? My resources are slim to afford anything. Power seems relatively on par during acceleration and smooth. No hesitation while driving. car has about 160K miles on it. Engine rebuilt with about 10K mi. on it. Sqwealing from a belt even at consistent warm temp of car and dry conditions. Maybe a damaged bearing on pulley due to a person trying to help me replace alternator 4 months ago. He lost his temper and was using a prybar on belts. Thanks for any help.
What makes this problem better or worse?
a bit worse when car is warmed up and idleing
How long has your 1999 Toyota Avalon had this problem?
started maybey 4 months ago. slowly getting worse.
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Sounds like the bigger concern is about engine performance. A OBD II code reader will help give you clues, but will not be able to troubleshoot once you get any codes.
There is a wide variety of possible causes for your concerns, and probably more than one fault is occurring simultaneously.
I can understand the financial concerns -- and appreciate that you're doing all you can to gain knowledge. The problem is that with a vehicle of this age and mileage, there are so many possibilities for the concerns you have that it would be very very bad to start making repairs or replacing parts without knowing definitively what the problem actually is. You could actually spend more on parts that won't help you compared to testing that will. Good luck.
