Not Very Confident

bcarson · July 27, 2009

My wife drives an 04 ES330 with 39000 miles. Last week, on her way to work, she stopped at a red light. When she tried to accelerate there was no engine response when the gas pedal was depressed. The engine was running but didn't rev. She discovered that by "flooring' the pedal she could crawl along at <5 mph. The check engine light and trac sensor lights came on

When we had it towed for service and they found two codes, P2121 Throttle P O L POS Sensor; and P2122 Switch D Circuit Low. They checked both these and found no abnormalties. When they reset the codes, everything returned to normal.

Their explanation centered around the computer "losing its program" and somehow the code reset reprogrammed the computer. However, they could give no assurance that the problem wouldn't re-occur at any time.

Any ideas?

1990LS400 · July 27, 2009

As I found out earlier this year when I thought I was going to have to call a tow trunk for my 2000 LS400, the electronic throttle position sensor can work intermittently when it starts to fail. Similar to your ES, the CEL and VSC indicators in the LS instrument cluster lit up. By restarting the car a couple of times, I was able to get the TPS working well enough to drive the car home and then to the repair shop the next day.

The "TPS" in my LS tested out as being bad and the pedal position sensor tested as being slightly below par -- I had them both replaced.

My LS had just over 100,000 miles on it when the TPS failed. 39,000 miles sure is early but $#it happens.

It's quite a sinking and scary feeling when you press the gas pedal and almost nothing happens, isn't it? Not sure all this electronic throttle stuff is a very good idea!