This is a quick success post, maybe will help someone in the future.
I am at the start of a month long road trip from NY -> TX -> CO -> MT -> WY -> NY in my 220k mile 97’.
Pulling into Nashville last night literally the last 5 miles out of 800 miles driving and I noticed the 4Runner jumping out of gear on the highway, as well as when coasting on a side road at 30-40. I immediately feared the worst - that my transmission was about to bite the dust.
I parked it for the night and started this morning for another 700 miles. Almost from the get-go things went south - the runner bucking all over the place, unable to hold a gear, torque converter coming unlocked.
Here’s a video, notice the RPM while trying to cruise at 60. I drove like this for about 150 miles.
3rd gen 4runner TPS malfunction - YouTube
I deduced it was not the trans however because it stalled while in neutral. It also didn’t seem to be slipping, I could also usually take off fine from a stop even under hard accel.
I changed all the spark plugs at a truck stop Dennys parking lot. The old plugs have 40k on them and looked perfect. Didn’t fix it. Ran fuel injector cleaner, nope. Put some trans fix in the trans, didn’t fix it. I’d read about the Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) but didn’t know much about it.
I had my wife call a few Toyota dealerships while on the highway towards Little Rock. None of them had one. I stopped at an Autozone on a whim because I wanted to try running some sea foam through, thinking maybe I’d gotten some bad gas.
Luckily they had an AC Delco brand TPS in stock for $80. Swapped it out in the parking lot in 15 minutes. Worked perfect and fixed the problem. Been choochin along today for 500 miles so far.
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