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Check engine, tsc, trac off, brake lights all on 02 Is300

2K views 3 replies 2 participants last post by  Ek9B18 
#1 ·
Hello, I'm in desperate need of assistance here!!! The check engine, TSC, trac off & brake lights are remaining on...(brake light goes off sometimes). My car all of the sudden started running really rough, almost like it needed a tune up. I took it to Advance & had codes read & every cylinder was misfiring; it actually read 30 codes. Took it to Auto Zone & the only code was for spark plugs. At this time, I did know that I needed new brake pads & had needed them for some time. Then I decided to take my car to Aamco to have it checked. After keeping it for 4 days, they called me & told me that I needed a new timing belt & water pump (amongst other things) that totaled up to over $2000. I had a trustworthy man look at it & he told me to change plugs & wires as well as coil pack to see if it ran better. When the plugs were pulled out, they were drenched in oil, obviously causing car to misfire. Changed plugs, wires, gasket (which was leaking). Not to mention, I paid to have brakes done as well. Complete tune up has been done & it ran great for an hour after that. Now, the car runs fine while its not warmed up. It runs great while in motion most of the time but when I stop, the brakes are almost gone & the car runs so rough, that it sometimes even cuts off on his own. I've literally changed the gas gap, changed some motion sensor, plugs, wires, coil packs, gasket, new brakes & tried to reset the computer by leaving battery unplugged for 20 minutes to reset it. None of these things have solved my issue. Is it possible that Aamco was correct & that I should put new timing belt & water pump on it to make it run like new again?! I'm taking shots in the dark here & started with the easy fixes in hopes that it'd save me $, but at this point, I've paid 3 guys to fix my car & the issue still exists. I'm now over the $2000 that I would've originally spent on a timing belt at Aamco, so I now know that when owning a Lexus, you can't do anything cheap, but I need to know....is the timing belt the issue here cuz it seems like if the timing were off, it'd skip & run rough at all times when drunk. Please help someone!!!!!
 
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#2 ·
they were drenched in oil, obviously causing car to misfire.
With leaky valve cover gaskets, the plugs get oil on them when you remove them. They probably weren't oily inside the engine.

I'd take it to the dealer. It's pretty clear the people you've had working on it just see you as a cash cow. A regular check engine light will disable the ABS and trac and make the lights flash so, I'd just ignore the ABS lights until after you get the codes fixed.

You need someone who knows how to troubleshoot. I'm not getting the feeling you're getting that at this point.

First thing I suspect of all the cylinders were mis-fireing would be:

Bad fuel pump
Plugged fuel filter.
Timing belt slipped timing.
Maybe the VVTI solenoid.
Bad ground on the engine.

The probability that all the coil packs or all the injectors failed at the same time is slim.
 
#3 ·
Ok, so you sound like you know what you're talking about!! Let me start by saying that I completely omitted the fact that all these issues started originally when I ran the car out of gas. Now, I completely neglected to tell everyone else who's looked at or worked on the car cuz I completely forgot about it til you mentioned the fuel pump. That's why I originally just changed fuel caps & reset the battery & it ran fine for a few days. I truly don't have the $ to take it to a Lexus dealership to be serviced or worked on at all, but there has to be some easier way to diagnose the problem without continuously paying person after person...not to have problem fixed. Do you think it could be something as simple as the fuel pump sock being clogged or something easy? Or do you think its fuel pump now or still timing?!
 
#4 ·
I truly don't have the $ to take it to a Lexus dealership to be serviced or worked on at all, but there has to be some easier way to diagnose the problem without continuously paying person after person...not to have problem fixed.
What I think is that you need someone to run actual tests and not just slap parts on the car. First thing I'd want to know is what your fuel pressure was. If the fuel pressure is correct, you can probably check off the pump or anything in the tank. If it's not correct then it might be source of all of your problems.

I'd also pull the timing cover off and make sure the cam timing looks correct. That the marks line up properly. I've seen at least 2 times recently in this forum where people had timing belts installed and the garage got it wrong.

If you can't do this work yourself, you're kind of at the garage's mercy.
 
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