Shaking during idle

Rob_G

New member
My 2012 TE runs fine and has just under 17,000kms on the odo. One thing I have noticed that has been somewhat annoying is an engine shake during idle in park. It's almost like the engine is misfiring, but I suppose if it was that would affect how it drives and probably throw a CEL too. Today I changed where I get gas and I also put some 91 octane in and will see if this helps. If not I will ask the dealership about it - although I'm sure they will say it's perfectly normal.
I'm doing some searching to see if I can find other information about this too.

Rob
 
Register to hide this ad
It's normal. Well somewhat. Some experience it and some don't. There are other threads about it. Mine does it with almost 22K miles and no issues
 
Had any work done or anything installed lately?

When I had my alarm installed they knocked a vacuum hose of some sort off when mounting the siren. My truck acted sort of like you are talking about until I tracked down the loose hose and reattached.
 
Sounds like it might be normal, check out this thread: http://www.toyota-4runner.org/5th-gen-t4rs/144880-rough-idle-p-n.html

Could be normal.. A/C isn't on so the cylcing of that is not the issue. Last night I could feel a lot of vibration from the engine, the worst it's ever been. I still think something is wrong with the truck though since the fuel economy has never been what it should. 15mpg (15.2l/100km) city driving. My TE is completely stock... Tire pressure is correct too. I had a 2010 TE and it had noticeably better economy than this 2012.

Rob
 
Have you talked with the Service Manager at the dealer? Those guys can aswer questions right off the top of their heads. They know their stuff. I know this for afact, because my wife had questions before buying ours, so we asked.

Looks like you're coming up on your next paid for Toyota oil change. They can look at it then too and see if anything needs adjusting. Unless it's bad enought now, then maybe schedule it early?
 
Had any work done or anything installed lately?

When I had my alarm installed they knocked a vacuum hose of some sort off when mounting the siren. My truck acted sort of like you are talking about until I tracked down the loose hose and reattached.

Can you take a pic of which vacuum hose it was??
 
I changed gas stations and started using premium for the last few fills. The idle seems a lot smoother now in park or neutral. However city driving mileage is still lower than it should be (I think).

Rob
 
The engine is designed to run on 87 and should not have any issues doing so. "Premium" gas should have no effect on this. The ECU can adjust to 91 octane and will take advantage of it, however this will take multiple tanks and in the end should have no effect on your idle "smoothness". It looks like your under warranty so I would just take it in. The very worst that would happen is that they would say " its normal" and you leave knowing that its on file and if it turns into a bigger issue then you are already on file. My 2012 has a bunch of little issues that really piss me off, including idle vibration -mostly when its not warmed up- however I don't think any of them will have an effect on long term durability. The 150 platform has proven its self all over the world and some vibration in park doesn't spell doom. As far as millage goes, my GF can take 300 miles worth of 18.1 mpg down to 16 in 1 day. I say take that TE into the abundance of wilderness that you have and let it show you why you bought it in the first place.
 
This is completely normal for this motor - people have been noticing it for a long time even with the original VVT-i variant. All of these engines single or dual VVT-i have a tendency towards the rough idle in park, some do it worse than others. Obviously there is some variability in the motors themselves, but fuel quality can and does affect the tendency for them to shake.

The motor as released was designed to use premium fuel. When it was first introduced into 2nd gen Tacomas, Consumers howled about the "need" for premium and the next year (2006) Toyota de-rated its power from 245 to 239 and said it was designed for 87 octane fuel. In reality, Toyota didn't do a thing to the motor - it was always ran just fine on regular 87 octane fuel, it just self adjusted to the lower octane fuel, retarded the ignition.

Most of these engines happily run on 87 octane fuel, but not all of them. I have an '07 Tacoma, a '12 Tacoma and '13 4Runner. The '07 Tacoma and the '13 4Runner run fine on 87 octane. There is a slight roughness at idle in park, but no big deal. The '12 Tacoma has always been rougher in park. In addition, I've noticed I get a little detonation when accelerating in lower rpm ranges sometimes. I have also found that swapping to 91+ octane makes the idle about the same as my other engines and eliminates the pinging.

When running premium the '12 Tacoma gets about 1mpg better mileage than without which means the premium fuel is a wash as far as cost. I run premium in the '12... The motor was designed to be able to run on 91+ octane and get benefits from it. It is not surprising that some individual engines are more sensitive to fuel quality. Run it on premium if you notice a difference, it will probably get slightly better gas mileage which will effectively pay for the difference in fuel quality.

Regardless, don't stress about the motor being rough idling in park - they all do it to some degree, it is normal and nothing is wrong.

David
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
278,306
Messages
3,554,045
Members
248,016
Latest member
Advally Service

Trending content

Back
Top