brandondiem

I am still having battery trouble but believe it is because the car is sitting for prolonged periods now. I am getting a charger this weekend to bump up the juice in the battery since the alternator will not fully charge it. I will report back soon.

Well after cleaning the iacv and replacing the TPS and battery, 1 day later my car will not start. The battery terminals are clean and the battery is charged. I do have all lights and dash clock still functioning, they momentarily shut off at turn of the key and come back on. When I turn the key I get just one "Click" from under the hood. I fear this maybe the starter but I have never had a starter issue in the past. I plan on swapping out the battery from my other car to verify that it is not a battery related issue. Any other troubleshooting suggestions before I order up a new starter? Thanks,

I found out what the CEL was indicating- Throttle body posisiton sensor. Does anyone have any insight on this one?

I found these vids on YOUtube illustrating the Seafoam treartment search seafom on youtube for more

Dark & Stormy.....make it a double

I replaced the factory screws with bolts. THis will make any future removal much easier.

Unfortunately without a true oil pressure guage you're left with the idiot light that simply warns of very-low or lack of oil pressure, too late gnerally to do anythingn about it. any ime you check the oil it should be warm and on a level surface. I'd say the stick shoudnt be dry when its cold certainly but it could easily be at the low line and still be fine when warm. How does the car run now? the oil level is ok. I did clean the throttle body & made a mess of the driveway leaking coolant. The car seems to run smooth and idle a bit high. I still have the CEl on so I will reset and see what happens. If it is not off after the reset I will be taking to my mechanic to troubleshoot the codes.

If the idle is very rough you may have experienced coil failure, that usually triggers a CEl. Search the forum for "coil failure" and see if any of the symptoms are similar. I never noticed the CEL on when I was having the rough idle due to the IACV. It was odd. I was at a stop light and the car shuttered a bit , and the RPMs dipped. I put the car in nuetral and gave it some gas and sped home. I have been trying to get to the garage to get the oil changed for the past 2 weeks. So I checked the oil this moring while the motor was not warmed up. the dipstick was low. I wonder if the oil had anything to do with it? Wouldn't the oil presure gauge go off it the oil was low?

I experienced a brief rough idle this morning after the car warmed up. Is was a foggy morning and I soon headed for home to swap cars before I stalled in Boston traffic. I thought the MAF Sensor might need a cleaning but this throttle body cleaning may do the trick. My only concearn is that my check engine light went on during my ride home. HAs anyone experienced the rough idle problem that triggered the check engine light?

I suspected that. I have not done the throttle body cleaning before. Will the car run if the air hoses and maf are disconnected?

Well a new event happened today while in traffic. I had already driven 10 miles and was traveling on the highway, slowed down to a complete stop to yield to merging traffic when my RX300 stalled. This has never happened before. I did hav the AC on low, I shut it off and put the car in park and fired it back up. I was able to get to work with no other incidents. I was hoping to hear some of your explainations. I have slowly developed a leak in the exhaust system that needs some attention and thought perhaps that could be fouling out the MAF or other sensor. I will dissassmeble and clean tonight.

While I am sure that there are issues with ethanol, I am not certain that all of the points you bring up are bad. I am relying on decades old chemistry here but, ethanol combining with water is a good thing if the moisture is in your tank. The majority of fuel line deicers contain alcohol just because it DOES bond with moisture. You want the water bonded to the alcohol so that it will be consumed in the engine. In the old days, we used to clean the engines by slowly pouring water into the carb which would cause the water to turn to steam and do a back-yard head cleaning job. The only vehicles that need a specific water/fuel separator are diesels. I have to maintain my old Mercedes diesel meticulously to keep water out. Bad for the injectors because of the pressures. Second fact, ethanol carries disolved matter into your fuel system. It was my understanding that gasoline is a FAR better solvent than alcohol. Of course, any solvent will carry disolved "stuff" into your fuel system. That is one reason why we have a very good fuel filter. Next fact - are our fuel tanks fiberglass or is that a reference to the boating circle? Gasoline is also a very good disolver of fiberglass. In that classic Corvette world, some of the early 60s Corvettes had a large, 36 gallon fiberglass fuel tank. Owners of these 40 year old cars are reporting that the resin in the fiberglass is being disolved and fuel leaks are occuring. Of course, GM probably never intended for these fuel tanks to last 40+ years. I think that the only substantial complaint that you posted is that the ethanol attacks rubber hoses and gaskets. I think that the manufacturers are taking care of this and wouldn't be surprised if Toyota doesn't already have ethanol friendly gaskets and rubber. Gary This is the kind of post I was hoping to see. It just seems the ethanol has many in the boating community on edge.

Well the topic of Ethanol as a replacement additive to MBTE has been exhausted in some of my boating forums this past spring. I am surprised to see relatively no attention to this in forums regarding the change in our vehicles fuel. I thought I would post the following from one of my boating forums that points out some of the issues this new blend of gas is causing in 2 and 4 stroke boat engines. —Ethanol combines with water formed by condensation in the fuel tank. Without specialized fuel/water separators, that could deliver bad gas to your motor. —Ethanol can carry dissolved particles to the motor because it has detergent qualities not found in gas with MBTE. It tends to dissolve deposits in fuel tanks and those get sent along to the engine unless you’ve upgraded your fuel/water separator and replace it when needed. —If you have an older fiberglass fuel tank (made before the mid-1980s), ethanol could even dissolve the tank. Don’t worry about a ruptured fuel tank, however. Long before it ate that much resin, the dissolved chemicals would coat your engine parts and ruin the motor. —Even without dissolved resins getting into the mix, ethanol gas tends to react negatively with gaskets and other equipment and some Connecticut repair shops had trouble keeping certain supplies in stock last season. —Those boaters with metal tanks and good filters still have to worry about the way they fuel up. In the past, people often kept the tank topped off by filling up at the end of a trip. Ethanol fuel loses its octane rating in as little as a few weeks. You’ll lose performance unless you keep just fresh gas in the tank. —Ethanol gas does not mix well with MBTE gas. You should burn off as much of the old fuel as you can before adding new gas this season.

I mentioned the TSB to Lexus customer service, I recieved the - "so it is not covered, your car is out of warranty" line. I am so fed up with paying for this cars design flaws.

I too have been hovering around the low 18mpg range. I use regular gas and have added a K&N air filter with a Tonado air adapter with no remarkable efficiency.