Well, a couple of my friends rode in the runner w/ me and they all concluded it was something electrical. This really sucks as I wanted to go hunting this weekend. Oh well, at least she's going into my buddies dealership this Monday to get looked at.

 

For electrical...., that would be right thing to do. Did you buy any extended waranty for her?
Keep us posted what causes this to happen and how much it would cost you./

Good luck!

 

No, no extended warranty. I purchased her via private party a couple of weeks ago.

It's wierd, she just started acting up one morning. All the spark plug wires seem to be intact. This sucks.....I hope it's something simple. I was planning on lifting her a little to get rid of the sag

 

Okay, here's the deal.

I took a little look at her during lunch. I found that the spark plug wire for the #2 cylinder on the driver's side was loose. I just snapped the wire back into place.

Did that fix the problem?

No. Under almost ANY load, she now bucks and the battery light flashes like heck. The temp gauge fluctuates insanely and the RPMs are fluttering like mad.

I can here little click noises coming from the dashboard on the passenger's side. Anybody have any clues? I don't think I can make it to my buddies dealership...I'm in Santa Clara and his dealership is in Livermore. ~40 miles or so.

Also, the CEL is on.

 

All of the above happened when my alternator died.

 

A quick test for the alt is to get a $30 multimeter from the auto farts store or wally world and check to see if you have +13. volts at the battery with the engine running in park. If you don't have +13 volts, before you shut it all down try wiggling the wires to see if you can isolate a ground or battery connection short.

The dash clicks are relays gaining and losing power. They control things like power antenna, hvac, etc. The CEL is telling you there is an electrical problem.

My money is still on alt or ground. Usually though it isn't catastrophic and just a loose bolt somewhere.

Good luck.

 

Something exactly like this happened to my old car. Took it to the dealership, wanted $2k for a new alternator, i said, yea right, im not paying that. Got a second opinion, turned out to be a short INSIDE the battery, dont ask me how. Well $137 later, new battery, everything fine, until the head gasket broke, lol, o well, now i have a 4runner!! A big clue to a short is the messed up gauges, I would try to replace the battery, even if its from another car, just to see if it fixes it, then you can spend the money on a new battery.