Test Driving A 99 Es300 And Kinda Overheated?

[Cwiok71]

Hi everyone, I am new to the ES side of the forum. I had a 92 SC400 with a ton of miles received so much helpful advice from everyone. I hope you guys can help me out just as well-

So the time has come for me to get a 4 door, my SC is long gone and the car was so great to me I truly believe in Lexus quality but here is my delima, I work at a car dealership here in Sacramento Ca, and a few weeks ago the used car manager delivered a 1999 ES 300 to the lot, the car is unbelievably clean inside no wear on the leather, body in perfect shape, no paint work or even door dings. There is no way to tell the car has 183 THOUSAND miles on it! The CarFax came back clean... Anyways-

I took the car on a test drive this weekend on a 109 degree day and while at a red light I noticed the temp gauge slowly creeping up, by this point I have driven the car for about 30 minutes with no problems through town red light to red light with the A/C on Max Cold but after a half an hour it started giving me trouble. The Temp gauge was just above 3/4 when I started moving again and it went back down to "normal" I thought that was odd and headed back to the dealer where I parked the car for me to check it out on Monday morning when it was cooler.

The next day I pulled the car to the service drive so I can check out things in the shade. Oil looked good, Trans oil looked brand new, the previous owner really took care of it, but I am worried about the heat going up I even drove the car some more today and noticed the same thing happen. I idled the car for 10 minutes- no problems drove it about 6 miles away and idled if front of the business for ten more minutes still fine. But on the way back to the dealer while stopped at a stop sign the gauge started moving again.

The needle is still 4 maybe 5 little marks from the red on the gauge but it still makes me wonder what might be wrong. Anybody out there have any ideas???

Please help

Thanks a ton

Jerry

[SKperformance]

May have a head gasket leak get a compression and a leak down test to know for sure.

The engine is also covered by Toyota's extended warr for 10 years or so for free sludge problems.

[Cwiok71]

May have a head gasket leak get a compression and a leak down test to know for sure.

The engine is also covered by Toyota's extended warr for 10 years or so for free sludge problems.

Thanks for the advice-

Oh wow 10 year warranty!!! Are there any restrictions and how do I find more info on the "recall"

Is it pretty common for a car with that many miles to see a head gasket problem like that? And do the symptoms sound like that type of problem?

One more thing I noticed was when I accelerated while the temp was hot the car knocked like trick or treaters on a rich mans door, you think maybe just hot air getting to the motor???

If your interested in checking out how clean the car is you can see it here-

http://www.adamscarconnection.com/detail.php?stock=ACC119

Thanks again, this site rocks

Jerry

[mburnickas]

May have a head gasket leak get a compression and a leak down test to know for sure.

The engine is also covered by Toyota's extended warr for 10 years or so for free sludge problems.

Thanks for the advice-

Oh wow 10 year warranty!!! Are there any restrictions and how do I find more info on the "recall"

Is it pretty common for a car with that many miles to see a head gasket problem like that? And do the symptoms sound like that type of problem?

One more thing I noticed was when I accelerated while the temp was hot the car knocked like trick or treaters on a rich mans door, you think maybe just hot air getting to the motor???

If your interested in checking out how clean the car is you can see it here-

http://www.adamscarconnection.com/detail.php?stock=ACC119

Thanks again, this site rocks

Jerry

8 years.

http://home.comcast.net/%7E94gsxr1100/lexus/oil/Sludge1.pdf

[SKperformance]

I stand corrected.

:)

[SW03ES]

That is certainly not normal...

[Cwiok71]

This thing is so weird... We have adopted this car as the lot car for the time being until we fix the problem, so today we drove the ES around in 112 degree weather with the A/C on max cool and here is what happened.

For the first 30 minutes of mix freeway and city driving no problems at all shortly after that for some strange reason while at a long red light the A/C air started getting warm like the compressor was not on and then we watched the temp needle start to move up.

We thought the fans might not be on, when the light turned green we started moving it seemed that something "clicked" on because the A/C started getting colder. we pulled into the dealership turned off the car for 3 minutes then I got back in started it and pulled it into the shade so I could take a look at it. In that 3 minutes that the car was off the temp. needle returned to the spot where it was for the first 30 minutes of driving. I let the car idle for 10 minutes with the A/C on and the needle did not budge!

I am so lost anybody got any ideas???

Thanks

Jerry

[SKperformance]

Sounds liek 2 seperate issues.

Could be a loss of vacume for load activation.

CLean the throttle body.

[Cwiok71]

Sounds liek 2 seperate issues.

Could be a loss of vacume for load activation.

CLean the throttle body.

Thanks, I will have our tech take a look at it.

You guys are a great help

Jerry