How To Test The Throttle Position Sensor (1992-1996 2.2L Camry)

TEST 2: Verifying Throttle Position Sensor Has 5 Volts And Ground

If in TEST 1, your 2.2L Toyota Camry did not pass the test, you need to make sure it's getting both power and Ground (before condemning it as bad).

The two wires that feed power and Ground are:

• The red (RED) wire, of the TP connector, supplies 5 Volts to the TP sensor.
• The brown (BRN) wire, of the TP connector, supplies Ground.

If in this test you're able to confirm that the TPS is getting power and Ground (after confirming it's not creating the correct throttle angle signal in TEST 1), then you can confidently conclude it's bad and needs to be replaced with a new one.

IMPORTANT: The PCM is the one that feeds this Ground to the throttle position sensor (TPS). Be careful and don't short this wire to battery voltage or you'll fry the PCM.

With your multimeter in Volts DC mode, this is what you need to do:

1. 1

   Verify that the RED wire has voltage ( 4.5 to 5 Volts DC ) with the key on but engine off.
   
   A.) Connect the red multimeter test lead (using the appropriate tool) to the RED wire.
   
   B.) Connect the black multimeter test lead to the negative battery (-) terminal.
   
   C.) Your multimeter should read 4.5 to 5 Volts DC.

2. 2

   Verify that the BRN wire has Ground with the key on but engine off.
   
   A.) Connect the black multimeter test lead (using the appropriate tool) to the BRN wire.
   
   B.) Connect the red multimeter test lead to the battery positive (+) terminal.
   
   C.) Your multimeter should read 12 Volts DC.

Let's take a look at what your test results mean:

CASE 1: The multimeter confirms you have power and Ground. This is good since you can rule out electrical wiring issues as behind the cause of the TPS trouble code lighting up the check engine light on your 2.2L Toyota Camry.

You can conclude that the TPS is bad only if all tests have confirmed that:

1. The TP sensor IS NOT providing a varying voltage signal when manually opening/closing the throttle plate.
2. The TP sensor is being fed 5 Volts DC.
3. The TP sensor is being fed Ground.

Therefore, you can conclude that the throttle position sensor is bad and needs to be replaced (and that this will solve the TP sensor code lighting up the check engine light) on your 2.2L Toyota Camry.

You'll need to adjust the TPS assembly if you replace it. The following heading will help you with this procedure: Adjusting The Throttle Position Sensor Assembly (this heading is found in the tutorial: TPS Idle Switch Multimeter Test (1992-1996 2.2L Camry)).

CASE 2: Multimeter confirms that power or Ground are missing. Take a look at your connections and make sure that you're testing the correct wires.

If power and Ground are still missing, then you can conclude that there's an open in the wire between the TP sensor harness connector and the PCM's harness connector. In the extreme of cases, the PCM has an internal problem (although this is very rare).

Although testing these two conditions are beyond the scope of this article, you have now eliminated the throttle position sensor (TPS) on your 2.2L Toyota Camry as being the cause of the problem and/or the TP sensor diagnostic trouble code (DTC) lighting up the check engine light (CEL).