Tundra runs bad after driving 5 to ten miles or so.

Hi I have a 2000 tundra sr5 4x2. This is what's going on. I start it up in the morning and it runs great. I drive it to work it's about 20 miles. No problems at all. Then after I get off I drive back home. Still running good. When I start to get into stop and go traffic it starts acting up. When I give it gas it's real sluggish almost wants to die. Starts backfiring, no power at all. I can get it up to speed but I can't give it too much gas or it will start bogging down. If I stop and turn the truck off and start it back up again it will run good for about 5min. And then start running like crap again.

 

And Check engine lights? How many miles? A bad 02 sensor will cause driveability issues.

 

Had an issue like this when my cat was bad on a Camry. The honeycomb collapsed inside.

Is it throwing any codes?

 

I'm gonna guess fuel filter if it hasn't been changed recently.

 

Start with a basic tune up (fuel, air, oil, spark plugs), clean MAF as well. To me, sounds like a coil misfire.

 

I had this happen on a sienna. It would run fine for 20 minutes and then act like it was running out of fuel. It turned out to be the fuel pump. If you are up in the 200000 mile club, it’s a possibility.

 

Since it starts going bad on you in stop n go traffic, my guess would be a heat related issue. Sounds like a fuel pump to me too, but since its in the gas tank, don't know why it would be intermittent. I'd take Southpaw's advice, hit the basics and see where that gets you. With the symptoms you've listed, you should be throwing codes. You could get more help from the people on the forum if you can list them.

 

If this is the kind of thing that only happens at a low idle (assuming that it’s at high idle when stopping and starting up the truck again), it’s a possibility of water in the the fuel. Usually though that shows up as a random misfire. A bottle of dry gas and a 1/2 a tank of additional gas would help rule that out.

 

My Fuel Tank Gasket was gnar gnar when I recently replaced the Fuel Pump in a Prevent Maintenance Mode. Glad I did. Water/Rust was a leaking into the tank. I never experienced problems, but guessing it was caught in time.

When I had a bad coil, it was bad all the time. It went bad and stayed bad. It put the truck in limp mode and wouldn’t go over 30mph. Felt like engine was off balance. Couldn’t finagle or massage it. It was gnar gnar, too.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/the...t-‘build’-a-chronological-story.46816/page-10

 

Bad cat should throw a code. Haven't had this problem on my Tundra, but have had similar issues on a couple other trucks. Fuel pump was failing and acted up when it got warm. A clogged filter can also cause the pump to warm up and cause problems.