Engine Acceleration Problems

i just reread all your posts and if you have 4 adults in your car with a full trunk and you are trying to go up a small hill for example, in 5th gear at 2500rpm, you're really not going to get much acceleration out of it. If you downshift into 4th you'll probably be seeing like 3800rpm at 60mph and you should be able to accelerate at about 2-4mph every 5 seconds or so. Also keep into consideration the temperature outside (since LA is hotter) and consider the weight too. 4 adults and a full trunk can average up to 800lbs which will dramatically lessen the acceleration. Also during the hot summers if you have your AC blasting as well, that will also reduce your power in your car. Finally, if your wheels and tires are heavy, that will further play a role in your loss of performance.

I"m just guessing here but it sounds to me like your car is fine. Weight is the big issue here.

BTW, where abouts do you live? We may have a meet this coming friday at Northridge (San Fernando Valley north of LA) so we might even be able to take a look at your car. Check the SoCal section of the forum - Thread called "meet"

I live pretty close to northridge, I could make it out there. What do you guys do? My car is weak sauce and I have no money for mods. What could you really do to check it out though?

Basically, I don't think there is a problem with the car. It runs fine with just me in it. I'll go drive it later or something to make sure.

Sigh. My first car and so many problems.

We just loiter on top of the CSUN parking structure. We might grab a bite to eat or head to starbucks.

So you guys don't do donuts in the parking lot and then run from the police ?

That was high school for me. LOL

how do you do donuts on a fwd car? i'll probably figure out how i can make donuts inside a fwd car before i figure out how to do donuts with the car..

You pull trays. Or do donuts in reverse(yes, it's very very hard).

Ugh, that sounds terrible. I actually, to be honest, had a camry/accord in mind but settled on a certified toyota vehicle for about the same price and for a much much newer model with barely any miles on it. I'm pretty happy with my choice really, the corolla has blown me away in every aspect that I had imagined it except the acceleration. Sure, I've done 95mph on it at the fastest going downhill on the 405 but that is about it. The acceleration is weak as far as I can tell, but even with a full load on a car, you'd think it would still have some bang to it. I guess not though, 126hp is not that much?

In any case, I will go get my bumper fixed/replaced or whatever this week and hopefully I'll drop the car off at the dealership on the weekend to have them look at it. I still think there is nothing wrong with the car except that it is just a weak car. I may take it out tomorrow later at night to see how it drives with just me in it.

If it still sucks then, is it just a car problem? Should I even bother going to the dealer? What can I do to my car anyway to make it ACCELERATE faster. I don't give 2 damns about top speed to be honest, if I'm doing 60 on the highway here, that's lucky since LA traffic is sent from hell. But i'd like the car to actually speed up when I want it to, more of a safety thing than to try and race or whatever. I've looked up some stuff and it appears everything aftermarket would void my warranty. Now, let me see if I understand this correctly but, TRD parts installed by my dealer are okay with the warranty? Can I buy the TRD parts online and then have them install it? Are TRD parts any good compared to other aftermarket companies? Is it worth spending money on a cold air intake? I kind of want to spend the $25 for the ball shift knob thing because it's fun to hold (my friend has a ball shaped knob on his car). They apparently dont make shortshifters for the 03+ corollas so whatever, that's cool with me. Otherwise, I was looking at the lowering springs, I could use a little lowering to make the ride look sleeker.

All that aside, what can I do to try and check if the car actually has a problem or it just has too much of a load for the engine to handle it? I weight 200lbs easily. I'd say my 3 friends are pretty average, so let's say they weight 500lbs together. Our paintball stuff is probabably like 200lbs together. That comes out to 900lbs.... correct me if i'm wrong but...isn't that almost a third of the corolla's weight (25xxlbs or something)?

Bah. I am car dumb.

Acceleration Problems

Hey all, I'm new to this forum and have recently (a little over a month ago) acquired a '06 Corolla. It's a CE trim, which I think is the crappiest one but that's okay with me because as far I know, the engines are all the same except on the XRS.

Now, my problem with this car is that it takes forever to accelerate. Sometimes, on the highway, I would be going 60mph in 5th gear, floor the gas, and it would either not climb at all (RPM and Speedo needles perfectly static in position, RPM at about 2.5K). I shift into 4th and it revs higher, car accelerates but VERY VERY slowly. Now, I didn't time this or anything but it goes up about 2mph every 5 seconds or so, it climbs very slowly....

I was simply wondering what can be done to reduce this problem. I obviously won't get a lot of bang out of a Corolla without some ridiculous mods and money spent. I'm not too loaded (as you can tell by the CE trim) but I could spend something to fix this problem that almost gets me killed sometimes (did I mention accelerating from 40-60 is very slow as well?). This is usually with a car full of people and a very very full trunk, alone, I have less problems but I usually take a lot of people/stuff with me.

So, I've heard intakes help and all that but I'd like to attract the least attention as possible, so forget the loud exhausts and all that unless there are quiet exhausts that increase flow or something...

I'm not going to supercharge or turbocharge anything. I'd like to keep it simple and cost effective but feel free to toss in any ideas. Is this problem even worth looking into or will corollas always be this way without dropping the dough?

All input highly appreciated. I am in the Los Angeles area so if you have old stuff to sell off or stuff you dont want, let me know. Thanks.

I wouldn't even consider modifications yet. It sounds like you have a very big problem you need to fix first. Acceleration like that is not natural for a Corolla. Drastic power loss and acceleration like that makes me think that you have a clogged cat and/or an exhaust leak. If the car is running rough, then it could be a dead cylinder as well. You should bring it to a mechanic and get him to check the compression in each cylinder and inspect the exhaust system and under the hood for abnormalities.

Okay so maybe my intuition what right.

The car is practically new, I got it with some 54xx miles on it, it's toyota certified and all that junk. I've since drove it to about 61xx miles and noticed this problem.

Should I just take it in to toyota and have them diagnose it and take a look?

I've only driven my mom's 3.0 V6 van and my dad's 1.8T A6 before this car and the audi seemed absolutely fine (and i hear their turbos suck anyway).

Is this definitely a problem with my car?

Let me explain my problem more, maybe you can give me some help (by the way, been browsing this forums for a while, you are a genius.)

The thing that ticks me off is that, say I am going 70mph on gear 5 at 3K RPM, i floor the gas and nothing happens. Then, I let go of the gas, and it slows down.......say to 65...then I floor it, and it wont go back to 70 again until i hit a downward slope or the road changes or something. It's weird. I've ONCE had trouble accelerating on the highway from 50ish, I had to shift down to 2nd, rev it to 5-6K to make it climb slowly.

My car is completely stock except that I dented my wheels and replaced them with Enkei GF1's. I did a +2, so the rims are 17" and kept the sidewall the same. I don't know if the GF1s are considered heavy or not but I only noticed this problem onces I changed the wheels. I had changed a first set to some Voxx Monza's but they were 16". I noticed the problem on the way home from tire rack the very first time, thought it was the wheels, got some enkeis instead but same problem. Would the wheels cause this problem at all?

The wheels will make a difference in performance but in your case, unless each wheel was a good 80lbs each, you shouldn't be experiencing the loss in power.

I too would suggest you take it to the Dealership ASAP and figure out what is wrong with your car.

Bah, I barely have time to do that. How long should it take to check out for problems? Last time I called, they said it would take at least 4 hours to run a diagnostic.

Apparently, the Enkei GF1s are about 17lbs each for the 18" model...so 17" should be a tad lighter. How much do steelies weigh at 15"?

Also, completely off topic, but if I debadge my car, is it easy to put the lettering back on later?

Ok, let me get this straight. So you upgraded to 17 inch wheels and you kept your sidewall the same? The stock steelies would be around 14 to 15's so if you upgraded to 17 inch wheels and kept the sidewall the same 65 percent, you've got a problem. The wheel and tire diameter is way bigger than stock which will cause performance problems since the motor has to work harder to turn a much bigger surface. Your speedometer will also read wrong due to the mismatched size. You'll seem to be going slower. For example, if you were running 12 inch wheels and were driving 65, the speedometer would read higher than 65. In your case, the inverse would happen. Your speedometer would read much lower than 65 even though you are indeed traveling at that speed. This could trick your mind into thinking the car is traveling slower when in fact it's a calibration problem. I suggest getting a set of tires to change the diameter of the wheel and tire to stock-like diameters. Reduce your sidewall diameter. Carrying extra weight will also reduce performance. It's a given. Try to empty out the trunk and carry less people. Remove all unnecessary weight.

take a picture of your car. i want to see how big your tires are.

Sorry, I meant I modified the sidewall to keep the total diameter the same.....no I'm not that dumb

Edit: As far as I know, the car runs fine when I'm in it alone without any heavies in the trunk. The lack of power and acceleration at high speeds is VERY noticeable when I go paintballing, which means we have 4 people total and probably just as much weight in gear as the 4 of us put together. Is the corolla just naturally unable to handle this?



On the other hand, I did have a crash that I did not get fixed up yet. It seems very cosmetic and surface-level. Here are some pictures of it. Somebody basically sideswiped me sideways and hit my front bumper. There are tears in it. It's bumped inward. I put a quarter for reference if that helps at all. Do you guys think this bumper is fixable or will I need to replace it? If I had to replace it, how much would the OEM bumper cost (I was quoted ~$220 for the part unpainted)? How much to paint it? How much to install it (or is it easy to install yourself)? Should I even consider aftermarket bumpers if they are cheaper (I don't want a kit or anything I just want my ugly crash messup gone).

More importantly: could this affect my engine?

Pics:

http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper1.JPG
http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper2.JPG
http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper3.JPG
http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper4.JPG
http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper5.JPG
http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper6.JPG
http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper7.JPG
http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/bumper8.JPG


Again, I'm in the los angeles area, recommend me some body shops if you could, I'd appreciate it.

TRD parts are good but very overpriced. You can find much better performance parts for cheaper but that will void the warrantee. As for me, I have no warrantee so I can do whatever I wish. LOL TRD parts much be bought and installed at the dealer for them to be covered under the warrantee. Expect to be robbed by the stealership if you do that. You are correct. 900+ lbs is over a third of the car's original weight. That would slow it down drastically.

Okay, just for reference. My springs and whatever is at stock height. I have the stock diameter wheels. When the car is loaded, the back of my car literally sinks and the wheel hugs the car and looks really sweet (you know, how there's no gap between the wheel and the car). That's probably way too much weight huh?

Actually, I have a picture: http://mastertrixter.net/images/car/wheel.JPG

Notice how that back wheel has the car frame much lower than the front one. It's a horrible picture but let's just say it looked really awkward because the front had maybe 3-4inches from the tire to the top of the frame and the back one had about 1. Car looked like it was tilted backwards because of all the weight in the trunk.

that is normal with that much weight in the car. Two downsides are it will ruin your shocks faster (in about 3-4 years) and you will get bad gas mileage. the cool part is it make it makes your car looked lowered for free. Once the tire is hiding behind the fender, then you may want to consider changing the shocks or unloading weight.

hey rollatuner, i think i wanna choke on a spoon right about now...

Okay. So is this really worth looking into with the dealership? I mean, the car runs and all, it just....doesn't speed up sometimes. I will go drive it alone tonight and see how it goes.

If you see a red corolla going 35 on the freeway, it's probably me.

Chopsticks are for ricer!!!!

i am a ricer... eat it every day...almost

Rice has a good high glycemic index. Well at least some of them do. Don't eat too much though. It's a complex carbohydrate.

Roflmao

let me know if you need chocksticks..

I don't get it.

A fork it is! Apparently, the spoon wasn't enough so I upgraded to a fork unless DrunkSaru thinks chopsticks are more appropriate.