Mysterious, temporary power loss

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ølaf

Member
Hi all.

I'm stumped by a temporary sluggishness. Hoping someone has any insight they can share. Thanks in advance:

1999 Runner
200k
3.4
auto
recent transmission flush
newish battery
original injectors, O2 sensors
Possibly still original fuel filter

This happened on 2 occasions:

Occasion 1:
Truck has been sitting out in the cold for about 5 days without driving.
As I start it up, I can hear the battery laboring a bit.
Start driving, and it feels like I'm missing 3 out of my 6 cylinders. Absolutely no power. I don't; shift gears, just continue in D, and after about 20-30 seconds, the power is back.

I chalked that one up to a drained battery not firing all the fuel injectors properly at first.

Occasion 2:
This is about 2 months later. Truck has performed flawlessly since then.
This time, the truck has been sitting for about 4 weeks in the cold garage.
I fore it up, same thing, a bit of a laboring battery.
And there it is again, no power at all. If feels like I'm dragging an anchor. As I'm pulling out of the garage into the alley, the RPMs are moving along with the gas pedal, but it's as if the engine just isn't hooking up to the tranny. I with into Reverse and 1, and in both cases, the power is there??? Back into D, and power is gone again. So I continue to drive in 1, shift manually into 2, and after about a minute, shift into D. Now, similar to the first occasion, power is back.

Totally stumped.
Thoughts?

Thanks!
 
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Sounds like transmission slipping to me. But I'm not an expert. Someone else will chime in with more knowledge.
 
Thanks Muddy.
I'm hoping that some of the observations (drove fine in L(1) and Reverse, and only occurred after sitting for a while - has been flawless otherwise) are refuting a slipping tranny.

Anyone else?
 
I'll check tonight.
It makes sense to me that it's somewhat battery related given the consistency of the two long sitting periods and the laboring cranking at each of the two start-ups. Two questions though:

1: Given that the battery is only a few months old, what would cause the battery to loose that much charge in just a week (first incident) of sitting?

2: If it is, in fact that battery (hopefully!!!) how would that in fact cause the temporary sluggish behavior, and why ddid Reverse and Low feel fine? Also, wouldn't the alternator take over and supply enough juice to all components once the engine is running?

Thanks!
 
Did it happen after the trans flush? Sounds trans related to me. Also, do you jump in and go or let it warm up a bit before driving?
 
I would get the battery tested... I experienced similar symptoms when I had a faulty battery... it's seemed as if the transmission brain was drunk.
 
allwheeldrive said:
Did it happen after the trans flush? Sounds trans related to me. Also, do you jump in and go or let it warm up a bit before driving?
Click to expand...

yeah, but about 2 months later.
So I'm *hoping* that between it working just fine in Reverse and Low, and it only occurring after the truck sitting for a week or more, it's not the transmission. But I certainly should not rule it out.

Thanks!
 
Post terminal came off my truck the other day and had no issues with the engine or transmission kinda sputtered from the voltage influx but ran fine. Besides that have you had a auto parts place check the voltage?
 
Just to close the loop on this problem. And thanks for all the input.
Ended up being just a bad battery. :cheers:
 
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