What's new
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

Any Toyota / Lexus tech's here?

chalet2506

chalet2506

CK5 Huge Member
 Premium
Joined
May 9, 2006
Posts
5,007
Reaction score
168
Location
Skeddadlin
My wife's 2003 ES 300 was slow to start a couple days ago and the check engine light came on a couple times. Its been a while since air filter was changed and the battery's getting a little old. So I stopped today and got a new air filter, cabin filter, and battery. Changed them all out, now the thing won't idle? If you give it some gas it'll run, but it idles way to low and dies out once you're off the accelerator. Lights are dimming and brightening when the rpm's are going up and down. Thinking maybe the alternator is going out, but I'd think it'd run for a little while with a brand new battery.

Thought maybe I got a bad battery, so I put the old one in and same thing. Checked the air filter and made sure its seated good, checked the sensor I unplugged on top the filter housing and little vacuum lines I had to disconnect and they're good. Don't know what the heck is going on.
 
Don't think its electrical, ran some jumper cables off my F250 to it and its doing the same thing. Just don't have the headlight dimming with low rpm thing going on.
 
First of all, STOP WORKING ON IT.
The poor thing will never get better at this rate.

Cars of that year and later have adaptive idle programs. It actually learns how to idle and run over a small period of time.

When you pulled the battery, it forgot how, so it fell back on a canned program burned in when it was new.
Trouble is, the engine is not new anymore, so the original program is not all that great.
Its trying to relearn with the new stuff you put on, but every time it gets better, you make a change.

For a while some cars had specific learning procedures that let them learn faster. Don't know if yours does or not, I'll check around.

In the meantime, pull the battery ground wire back off.
Touch it to the positive lead to discharge any residual charge in the system.
Let it sit for about 5 minutes just in case.

Turn off the air conditioner, and as many electrical loads as you can.

Crank the car without touching the gas pedal. It may die. Don't help it, just crank it again. No gas pedal.

After a couple of tries, it should keep running, even though poorly.
Just let it run.
After a few minutes, it should even out as it learns.

When it sounds good, try the air con. If still good, drop it in gear with your foot on the brake.

That should do it.
The voltage going up and down was probably the engine rpm going lower than the alternator can keep up with the load.
Once the idle is up to spec, the alt should be fine.

Let me know if that does not do it.

J.
 
Took the intake off and sprayed about a can of berryman through the throttle body as I read sometimes the idle control valve will get gunked and cause this problem. Going to drink another beer and let it dry, put it back together, and if that don't fix it then its going to the shop tomorrow.

Battery's and filters are pretty straight up - don't know what I could've ****ed up, car has been problem free the last five years. I can drive the Jimmy, and the wife and kids can take the F250 tomorrow. Problem is she has refused to drive my pickup up until now. I don't think either one of us wants her behind the wheel.
 
Every time I have ever tried to clean a IACV on a Toyota/Lexus it has killed the IACV.
You can pull them out and jumper power to the terminals on the toyotas and watch the valve move open and closed. There is also a resistance check called out in the repair manuals.
 
Fordum said:
First of all, STOP WORKING ON IT.
The poor thing will never get better at this rate.

Cars of that year and later have adaptive idle programs. It actually learns how to idle and run over a small period of time.

When you pulled the battery, it forgot how, so it fell back on a canned program burned in when it was new.
Trouble is, the engine is not new anymore, so the original program is not all that great.
Its trying to relearn with the new stuff you put on, but every time it gets better, you make a change.

For a while some cars had specific learning procedures that let them learn faster. Don't know if yours does or not, I'll check around.

In the meantime, pull the battery ground wire back off.
Touch it to the positive lead to discharge any residual charge in the system.
Let it sit for about 5 minutes just in case.

Turn off the air conditioner, and as many electrical loads as you can.

Crank the car without touching the gas pedal. It may die. Don't help it, just crank it again. No gas pedal.

After a couple of tries, it should keep running, even though poorly.
Just let it run.
After a few minutes, it should even out as it learns.

When it sounds good, try the air con. If still good, drop it in gear with your foot on the brake.

That should do it.
The voltage going up and down was probably the engine rpm going lower than the alternator can keep up with the load.
Once the idle is up to spec, the alt should be fine.

Let me know if that does not do it.

J.
Click to expand...

This did it, thanks. I'd have never thought to turn it over until it starts with out any gas pedal. (Too much time behind old quadrajets) Took a minute to get it going, then ran rough as heck once it caught, but was purring after about 10 minutes with no help from me.

Thanks again.
 
So does this make my wife's car "artficially intelligent"? And if so, I guess its smarter than me. :D
 
On most cars this can be avoided by using a little device that plugs into the cigarette lighter and has a 9 volt battery attached so that when you remove the vehicle's battery the memory in the ECM is retained and doesn't have to relearn the idle and or driving habits.
 
mr.smartass said:
Wow, that's awesome.:D
Click to expand...

Drinking beer until 1AM and working on my truck gets me the ol "Are you going to drink beer all night?"

Staying up until 1AM and drinking beer while working on my wife's car gets me the "you poor thing" Hoping to reap some rewards later this evening.
 
The thing to do now, is to tell your wife to watch for a check engine light.

The downside to these smart cars is that they can compensate for a building problem long after you would have seen it and gotten it fixed.

Friend of mine's truck lit up the check engine light. He is the world's worst on maintenance, so I was astonished when he complained to me.

Turned out, the light was shining in his eyes when he was driving at night, and he wanted me to pull the bulb.

He said that there could not be anything wrong with the engine, because it cranked right up, ran good, had plenty of power and got good mileage.

I didn't have a scanner then, so I did the light flash routine. It gave me a code of a lean condition.
Didn't make much sense, it was running good, no pings.

I called my mechanic friend. He told me to either bring it in, or go ahead and change the fuel filter myself.

In this case, as the fuel filter got more and more clogged, the computer learned to hold the injectors open longer and longer.
Eventually, it reached a preset limit and tripped the light.

It was still adjusting them more and more, but the light was an early warning that it would run out of adjustment sooner or later.

In your case, the reason it ran so poorly after the battery change, may mean that something is way out of spec. Fuel pressure, deposits on the throttle body, something that it has to learn to compensate for.

If so, it should trip the light eventually to tell you what it is.

If not, it may have been low battery voltage that tripped the light and its fixed now that you have replaced the battery.

J.
 
Check engine light was still on the next morning. I put a can of seafoam in the tank, which had about 8 gallons or so in it. Wife said it went off about the time she got to work, 7 miles and hasn't been back on since. Probably is due a fuel filter, I just need to figure out where its at.

If it comes back on I'll run it to Autozone and get them to run the codes.
 
If the light was on before you pulled the battery, its not unusual for it to stay on. Some codes are lost when you kill power, and others aren't.

Most codes are cleared after a certain number of start-ups with no problems in-between.

My car set a code due to a bad solder joint inside the ABS module. After I pulled the module and fixed it, the light stayed on for about 2 days and then went out.

I finally broke down and bought a scan tool. I was just getting too many friends come up to me and ask why their light was on.
Got so I could not remember the procedure for all the different makes to trigger the flashes.

J.
 
Welp. Engine light came on this morning and she called me @ work. Car running fine I ask? Yep, she said. Well, ticker just kicked 100000 so I think probably sensor going out or something. I'll check it when I get home, just drive it.

Car quit late in the day at the store close to the house. Engine light was on all day. Talked my wife through jumpstarting it, which worked, and she drove it home.

Got home, car started fine, engine light on. Drove to vatozone and battery is good per their little meter(batt only 15 mo's old). Alternator only putting out 12.9 v. Took alt off, took it back up, checked fine on their machine. Going out of town for the weekend, so put new alternator and batt in it. Engine light is out and car seems to be fine. And drank 9 or so lonestars. Need littler hands, that shouldn't have taken 3 hours. Joy of being married and mechanical.
 
There are only a few reasons for an Alt. to put out that low voltage.
Main causes, roughly in order....
1: Bad Alt.
2: Load bigger than it can handle, often a shorted battery cell combined with heavy regular loads.
3:Loose or bad connections.
4:Loose, glazed, or otherwise compromised fan belt.
5:Really low idle.

No. 4 used to be No. 2, but with serpentine fan belts and spring loaded tensioners, its not too common anymore.
If you were able to hold the tensioner back with one hand while you put on the belt, you are either a heck of a lot stronger than most folks, or you need to replace it.
Same if the belt has no ridges in it anymore.

Otherwise, you should have taken care of 1, most likely 2, and most of the 3s that would be likely to cause problems. And 4 would have been pretty obvious.

Sometimes shotgunning a problem is the best, but its just not as satisfying........
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest Posts

Top Bottom