Engine Light Is On

[MalluDriver]

Week 2 of having had this car I am driving at 35 miles an hour and I see the CEL is ON.

I searched this site and saw numberous mentions of the the gas cap not being closed till you hear the click. So I go out check the car and I see that the cap came off very easily. So I close the gas cap till I hear 5 clicks. Now I try to open it again and it very smooth when I try to open it. I need help with two questions

1. Does the gas cap come off easily. what I mean here is that do you hear clicks or need to use some force to be able to remove the gas cap.

2. If this was gas cap issue, will the light go off by itself and do I now have to reset it.

I am obviously going crazy with this purchase of my first Lexus. Please advice.

[kashi125]

There are no clicks when opening the gas cap, only when closing it.

You can disconnect the battery and re-connect after an hour or so to reset the light and see if it comes on again. If it does, take it to an AutoZone and they will read the code for free and let you know what the problem is.

[MalluDriver]

Thank you for your prompt response. I also happened to read that the indicator will turn off after I drive it for a couple of days. I am still assuming that this is a gas cap issue. Is that a correct assumption or do I have to have it reset.

[kashi125]

Did it come on after a fill-up? If so there is a big chance that it was due to the gas cap.

[MalluDriver]

OK. Got my local Wheelworks to take a look at the code. It turned out to be -

P0136....O2 Sensor Circuit Malfunction (Bank 1 Sensor 2)

This was just replaced by the Putnam Lexus in Redwood City two weekends ago. I took the car back to them, the service person there asked me to leave the car there and he gave me a loner car and said that they stand by their fixes and if its a bad sensor they will replace it for free. Though I am hoping that the he does not come back and say there is something else wrong that lead to it. :-/

Can this code mean anything else other than that they have to replace the senor?

Please advice

[zockslexus]

There are no clicks when opening the gas cap, only when closing it.

You can disconnect the battery and re-connect after an hour or so to reset the light and see if it comes on again. If it does, take it to an AutoZone and they will read the code for free and let you know what the problem is.

True on the clicking ...

However, 3-5 minutes of leaving the battery unplugged will do just fine..an hour or so is over board.

[kashi125]

Did you hear back from the service person from Lexus?

[MalluDriver]

I did hear back from the Lexus dealership. He said it was a bad sensor, agreed with what I found at Wheelworks and said that they will replace it for no charge. It will be ready Monday. I am holding my breadth on the dealership not coming up with something new and that this will fix the issue.

[MalluDriver]

OK the dealer left me VM. He said after they replaced the sensor they still got he light come back and think its a computer issue. I will need to call him up. Can someone explain what this means to me?

[kashi125]

It seems like they are implying that the sensor is working but the computer is not reading the sensor properly. Did he say what the next step is? Do they want to replace the computer? I have never heard of a similar problem before--hopefully someone else can chime in.

[camlex]

after replacing sensor by dealer, you mentioned they got CEL again, did they check error code? same?

[MalluDriver]

Yes. The CEL went on with the same code. His message said it could be a computer problem. I was looking for some help in undertanding what that means?

[zockslexus]

Yes. The CEL went on with the same code. His message said it could be a computer problem. I was looking for some help in undertanding what that means?

try www.odbcodes.org or com or something like that. search my posts and you will find it.

[MalluDriver]

Thought I will post updates on the car.

The dealership said that they hace to change the ECM on the car, after this was done the CEL still came on. At this point they were working with the Lexus National Support and identified that the wiring harness from the sensors to ECM was shorted and had to be changed. After leaving the car at the dealership for 8 days, I finally got the car back and have been using for 1 week now with the CEL off (touch wood). The good news from all this, I was charged $0 :D, the whole thing was replaced under the California emissions warranty, which is supported upto 80,000 miles. This would have cost me $3000 otherwise. So I have my car back and am relieved to have my car back, no additional cost, minus the CEL.