Hey all,

New to this forum, so I hope I'm posting correctly.

TLDR: Could having the air filter housing unclipped and with no filter in it cause my 4runner to die randomly at idle or moving?

On June 3rd I took my 94 4Runner to a Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed because I was out of time and on a road trip. They showed me the air filter trying to upsell me but it was in great shape (I just checked it a couple weeks before) so I said to put it back in. A month later my 4 runner started dying randomly, whether it be moving, at idle, etc. It starts back up usually after a few minutes. I took it to a shop and $200 later they could only guess distributor. It died again today so I decided to take the distributor cap off to check it out and had to take the air filter housing off to get to the bottom screw. The housing was totally unclipped and THERE WAS NO AIR FILTER IN IT. My question is, could there possibly be a filter in there that could cause it to turn over but not start somewhat randomly? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

Just what year and engine are you working on??

How could your vehicle be looked at for $$200.00 and the missing air filter not be seen??

I take it you never open the hood either ??

With no air filter and the housing not secured not only would you be sucking in dirt but our 4 footed friends may have used the intake manifold as living quarters !!