Please, help...

I recently purchased a 94 Camry and it is giving me some troubles with the idle condition... When idle and in neutral or park the engine seems to lose some power but it keeps working (don't see too much change in the rpm either). However, when I switch into gear (R or D) the car shakes and the engine starts stumbling. If I don't start slowly pushing the gas, the engine will die. Also, sometimes even if I push the gas, it stumbles even worse and may still go dead. Finally if I am very gentle with the gas and if I manage to get it moving, it runs just fine from that point on. For as long as I don't come to a complete stop. If I do so, the problem starts all over again...

Does anyone have an idea what could be wrong? I really don't know what I can do and where I can start from. Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you.

One of the stickeys is a Service manual for a '94 Camry. See if you can sort it out by reading.

One of the stickys at the top of this forum is a '94 Camry maintenance manual. Instead of me telling you what it says, download it and go to page EG1-327 and start from there. Work through the troubleshooting procedure. When you get stuck, post again.

For example, go to the part of the table "Engine Stall" then "When N to D shift". First look at the Park/Neutral position switch circuit on page EG1-400 (because it's listed as the #1 likely problem). Then look at IAC valve circuit on page EG1-415 (because it's the 2nd most likely cause of the problem). Follow the flow chart and instructions.

Do this for every symptom that applies to your engine performance.

Thank you, Brian. I will download it and give it a try. I am not very skilled in this area, but I hope it will work. As you suggested, I will post again if I run into a problem. Thank you for your help.

I had a very similar problem that ended up being the ignition coil in my 93.

It pays to follow the flow charts and not arbitrarily replace components.