Craig M

Hi,

I have a 2004 RX 330. Recently, when I turn on the heat (not defroster), I get this burning, smelly smell for the first couple of minutes when the heater is running. After the heater runs for a few minutes, the smell disappears.

Anyone have experience with this and a solution. My local guy thinks it may be time to replace the cabin filter but not sure.

Thanks.

Deepak

Ontario, Canada

Check your valve cover gaskets for leaks. We had the same problem in ours, oil was leaking onto the exhaust manifold at startup.

Just an FYI update on this problem....

Took the car to my local Lexus dealer and had this them look at it. Turned out to be a seized auto leveling sensor for the headlights in the rear of the car. Lexus replaced it under warranty all is well. Lexus reports this problem is pretty common in the northeast because road salt gets in the sensor and messes it up. Hope this thread might help others in case they experience the same set of symptoms.

cheers

I have a 2005 RX330 AWD with about 15,000 miles on it and the AFS light started to blink both at night and during the day while driving. The headlights go through the side to side and up down movements during start up, but stop following the road after about a mile of driving.

The AFS light will stop blinking sometimes, but will just start blinking again later in a trip. I did notice some condesation inside one of the headlight units. Would this cause my problem?

I checked the service manual, kinda vague on how to trace the problem. Is this something the dealer will have to address? Is there a way to trouble shoot this problem myself. I'm stumped on this one because it seems everythng is working fine on startup, but then goes bad after a mile of driving:uh:.

TIA for any thoughts on this issue.

Hi Everyone,

I need your thoughts and experties on a problem with our RX300. Here is what I know:

-. 2000 RX300, 108K miles

-. A few days ago the check engine light came on and started blinking.

-. The engine lobes and it's seems quite likely that one or more cylinders are misfiring.

-. I got the codes and they are P0300, P0303, and P0304.

I did some search on the forum and it seems that most of the time the culprit is the ignition coil. Unfortunately the misfiring cylinders are 3 and 4 and cylinder 3 is a pain to get to. So here are my questions:

Q1. Is it possible that only one coil is bad and caused the code on the other? It seems unlikely that both coils went out at the same time.

Q2. After driving the car around the block, I parked it in the garage and looked under the hood. In the dark, I noticed that the catalytic converter was glowing red under the heat shield that covers it. I know the cat gets very hot under normal conditions, but does it actually glow? Is this caused by the unburned fuel in the cat? I had to drive the car home with this condition for about 40 miles. Could the excessive heat have damaged the cat?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

The only time I have encountered a red glowing cat was becuase the honeycomb structure inside the cat had broken up and parts were blocking the exhaust flow.

I agree with the above post. I would also explore if your timing is out of sync b/c of the problematic coils which would cause the glowing. The other thing that might cause a cat to glow would be a lean fuel mixture.

The fact thatthe computer is telling you about misfires would lead me towards one of the coils being bad or a bad spark plug.

Hope this helps