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INTRO Hi all, I have an ES300, and ever since I got it, the engine starts bucking when it has been running for a while and/or I floor it. THE PROBLEM What specifically happens is when I accelerate, before it shifts into second or third, (it only seems to have problems with these gears) the RPMs spike to 5,500 to 6,000, the car slows way down, the engine seems to buck (it feels like I hit a speed bump going about 30mph).  POSSIBLE COINCIDENCE  The bank 2 (front) catalytic converter code starts to show whenever this happens. I don't know if this is a coincidence, but it's frustrating. I see the problem isn't the catalytic converter because I bought a new one and put it on, and it didn't fix the problem, so I cleaned the old cat and put it back on. after that, the code for the catalytic converter didn't come back on for a while.  WHAT THE MECHANIC SAID The mechanic said that it was most likely either the transmission or the catalytic converter. I mentioned knock sensors but he said that he has never had a knock sensor not throw a code when it died. WHAT I DID My friend had the same problem in his ES300 that was from the previous generation, and he said that they replaced the knock sensors and fixed the problem, even though the dealership told them it was the transmission. So I replaced the knock sensors and all the gaskets we took off in the process.  THE FIX It seemed to work, I took it on the freeway and kept flooring it to get the engine hot, and it didn't buck when I had previously tested it, and it failed, with the new catalytic converter. So to make sure, I took a drive that was pretty much the same drive I had taken the summer before when I realized this was a big problem. This time, with the engine only resting about an hour or two before I drove back, the car had no issues. all seemed well in the world. THE PROBLEM RETURNS the other day I wanted to race my friend, and for the first time since I had tested the car on the freeway, I floored it. but this time it bucked again when it was trying to shift into second or third (I can't remember which one) and a few days later the same cat code I had before appeared. POSSIBLE FACTORS since I got the car, it has jerked whenever I put it in reverse I think there are 5 motor mounts in the car, and 3 or 4 of them are bad the power steering pump was leaking very slowly for a while, which made me burn through belts very fast (fixed now)     I appreciate any tips that you guys have for diagnosing this, I want to get this fixed but i don't want to pay a mechanic an insane amount of money to diagnose it and be wrong. Thank you all for your help.

Yes, looking like it was the injectors after all. I cleaned two of them four and six and rescanned and only cylinder two still had the misfire code active on it which I'm about to take off that one and clean it as well. I'm not sure why I didn't do it in the first place. I figured it was the only one working from my initial plug test so I just Left to be

My 2008 SC 430 has a bad windshield washer switch.  The local Toyota dealer quoted me $600.00 to replace it which sounds excessive to me.  Anyone ever done this or had it done?  Thanks  

P another thing I've been noticing is as I've been driving it more. The drivability has actually increased dramatically from when I first purchased the vehicle so that makes me leave that. Maybe I'm lodging something loose within the injectors but I will keep you updated

Thank you for the recommendations. I loosened one of the exhaust connectors to see if letting more exhaust gases out would change anything but it did not end. As for the clodcat, I loosened the exhaust pre-cat. I'm sort of leaning towards possibly a dirty injector because as I was showing my friend what was going on, I went and unplugged bank 2 injectors and only one of the injectors created a noticeable change with the engine running. While the other two injectors had little or no change as I unplugged them, so I'm assuming they're either dead or clogged or there's an issue in the circus somewhere. I don't have a multimeter so it's going to be difficult to test but I do have a ODB scanner that offers active testing and I'll probably just pull the injectors and activate the function and see if they start pulsing