Idle Problem Fixed

[Stan W.]

About a month ago I posted a question regarding unstable idle and poor performance going up hills. Here is the fix I found. It appears the last time I had my timing belt changed, the "clown" that did the work had it off the timing mark by one tooth. After the belt cover and all other parts were installed, he found his mistake (when the car would not start easily). To compensate, he turned the distributor until the car would start. However, once started the ECU takes over thus the resultant poor performance. Once I got a new belt installed correctly, with proper distributor timing, the car's performance is back "like new" and the car idles smooth at 650 RPM even with the AC on during mega-hot southern California days. The tech that worked on it said my experience was not unique, since many "shade-tree" mechanics think timimg problems or errors can be "corrected" by turning the distributor. They forget about the ECU controlling all. In addition, since the 1.6 litre engine small to begin with, any small deviations in timing, spark, or fuel has large consequences. Good thing I found a tech that knew what he was talking about. The cost to fix it was cheap all things considered. Multiple other techs had quoted large sums of money to replace things(fuel injectors, throttle body, throttle postion sensor, etc.) that "I needed" to fix the problem. Hope this info helps others.