Trying To Help A Friend With An 02 Es300 That Stalls, Need Help!

norcalvp · July 23, 2012

A Friend of mine has a 2002 ES300 that over the last week has developed a stalling problem. Yesterday I had him bring the car over so we could try to diagnose the problem. (He told me it was an 01, not an 02) Anyway, The problem only appears to happen at idle, the engine will be running fine, then studders and dies. If he keeps his foot on the gas to increase the RPM's slightly it won't die. I figured that this might be an issue with the throttle body (Similar issue with my Tacoma) so we got the throttle body off and cleaned it, I cleaned the MAF and put it back together and the problem still remains. I did some searching on the forums and found the IAC valve cleaning (Which I realize that this model year doesn't have now) and I also found threads stating that the EGR valve should be cleaned. Can anyone tell me where the valve is physically located? All of the images and documentation I could find was for the '01 and earlier, but alot of the parts houses show a part for an 02-03 ES300 that I cannot seem to locate on the engine, and I'm hoping that it's not behind the intake manifold.

Something else that I am unsure of is that there is a valve on the side of the intake manifold (At the far left of the manifold closest to the passenger front tire) that has a vacuum pod attached to a lever. I the shaft of the valve is a little loose, and I can pull the shaft out of the manifold pretty easily (I didn't think that I should be able to do this...) I tried to remove the valve assembly from the manifold, but could only get it to come out an 1/4 of an inch before it stopped. I have no idea what this is or how it should function.

Anyway if anyone can point me in the right direction or can point me in the direction of an online FSM I'd appreciate it.

Steve