Well I got up this morning to warm up my 4Runner to take the daughter to school & the other to the dentist; it wasn't particularly cold (about 40F) but I did it anyway. it started as usual but when I got in to take the school trip it was barely idling & was really rough. I took my daughter to school which was about a five mile round trip & it was trying to die at every stop.

I then had to get my other daughter to her dentists appt., when I came out of the dentists office & tried to start the 4Runner it just turned over for a minute or two. I gave it about 1/2 peddle & it started & idled real rough & stumbled around 100 rpm, then up to 200 rpm...then it stumbled it's way up to around 600 rpm. I was freaking out, I thought "TPS? CSI? CSI timer switch?? G$@& D*#^ Stupid bling blangin truck!"

Well, I noticed it seemed to drive & accelerate ok after it got up to speed. So I ran down the usual list in my head "fuel, air, fire" well....it was getting fire, that was certain, it was getting air because I took the air filter out & stuck my finger into the AFM & the flap was working, so that left fuel. "Dang fuel pump might be bad....but it didn't seem like the usual fuel pump problem; then it dawned on me....I hadn't ever changed the fuel filter since I had owned it (about a year) I wondered how long it had been so I changed it - Bingo. The date on the filter was 1/98 so it had been on there for ten years. Let that be a lesson to you all, it may be a pain in the rear, but change the stupid thing before you start losing it & begin all the complex diagnosis's!

 

I put this in here so it would come up in a search for "rough idle" etc. I searched around after my panic set in & didn't find much in the way of advice to replace the fuel filter & that was a google search & not just Yota-Tech. Thought it might save someone the cost of throwing multiple $200 parts at a $20 -$40 problem.

 

Thanks, I will do this. Son's 90 4runner v-6 now is doing this so I'll try your solution first.
BMJ