Alma Conty

July 2006 - after getting a full tank of gas, my check engine light came on - the car would hardly run - I somehow managed to drive the car home. My Lexus dealer instructed me to have the car towed to service the next day - and they found Cylinder Ignition Coil #6 was bad, and they replaced it.

May 2007 (10 months later), I was getting out of our driveway, my husband noticed that the engine sounded like it was hesitating, I properly took it down the driveway, and the check engine light turns on again. It was Memorial Day holiday, my Lexus dealer is closed for the long weekend. I have the car towed very first hour after the holiday, and this time, it was Cylinder Ignition Coil #2 that had gone bad.

I now feel 'terror' everytime I am on the road with my Lexus ES300. When will Cylinder Ignition Coil # 1, 3, 4 and 5 go bad and take me to the routine of towing, and replacing those coils? 2 days? 2 months? 2 years? Each incident of towing and replacing costs an average of $375 plus towing - I have an autoclub family membership that has taken cared of that cost. But I am concerned that if I am above the maximum number of tows allowed by the club, one incident could easily cost an average of $450.

What has been the experience of other ES300 owners? I would appreciate if I can get some feedback on other owners' experience regarding the Cylinder Ignition coil service record.

Lexmex

Welcome to Club Lexus

I can't speak for an ES, but with my RX which uses an almost identical 1MZFE engine, I blew an ignition coil about 1.5 years ago down here. No Lexus, so had to modify a Camry coil as a temporary fix.

Again, not a common occurrence but it does happen. Have you checked the condition of your spark plugs?

Pheonix

They should last indeffinately. Understand that the odds are grossly in the favor that your spark plugs simply needed changing and that the coil was perfectly fine. You simply powned up to a $300-400 bill instead of buying & changing $10-60 worth of spark plugs in your driveway one afternoon.




There's 3 coils, each coil fires opposite cylinders in the firing order.
When a coil goes bad you get a multiple cylinder mis-fires because each single coil on your engine fires 2 spark plugs.

(The coils are paired 1-4, 2-5, 3-6 meaning logically if you pull mis-fires on associated cylinders, your coil was trashed. Otherwise, you just 99.9983746% of the time needed new plugs, and you just let someone take you to the cleaners)
So if you only pulled one P03XX code, then you most likely needed new plugs. If you pulled associated cylinder's for example:

• P0300 (multiple cylinder / random mis-fire)
• P0301 (misfire cylinder #1)
• P0304 (misfire cylinder #4)

You can easily see that you're misfiring on 1 & 4, and that the coil is most likely bad.
If all you got was P0301. Your coil was fine, you needed a $1.50 spark plug.




Typically... They're lifetime. 1/2 million - million miles. Somewhere in there.

Pheonix

You know. That's typically tho... Sometimes parts just fail babydoll.
Denso makes the best, longest-lived electrical / electronic / ignition components on Earth by miles & miles. They have for the last 20 years. But sometimes stuff just fails.



Look at it this way. If another one fails, now you know that next time you should drive to someplace that will scan the codes for free (Autozone) then look the codes up on the internet / bring them here.

For a grand total of nothing, at worse you're armed with a good knowledge of the possible faults / costs involved before hand. And at best, you know... Your husband get's off his but & spends 5-20 minutes changing a $90 ignition coil in the drive way next time instead of you shelling out $750 LoL!

Pheonix

So basically.... You need to change your plugs more often, because there is no coil 6, and the coil for cylinder 6 also fires cylinder 3. The coil for cylinder 2 also fires cylinder 5.

I'm thinking you should just make your husband spend an hour changing your spark-plugs every 3 years. NGK, or Denso brand plugs ONLY. NOTHING ELSE, and IT DOES matter!!!!!!






And yes youa re a good girl for stopping the car when the engine light came on. Too often women drive it around because they play dumb.
But you know. Now take it to the next level. Get your own check engine light scanned somewhere for free. Then look them up online & post on a car forum like this one.
I promise, you'll find out what's going on the vast majority of the time & save yourself alot of trouble!

Mutek

I may be beating a dead horse here but these guys gave you bad information. They would be right if they were talking about any Lexus ES300 that was built pre-1999.

The 1999 and on ES300 uses 6 coils. That is, 1 coil per cylinder.

And to be from what i've researched so far, they don't even have the coil testing procedures or Ohm readings so people can do the DIY way of this( it even says that almost word for word in my Chiltons Manual) The only way to test these coils so far is to take it to the dealership and have the switch each coil from one healthy connection to the other to see the sparks from the coil.
I belieive i saw a testing ohm reading diagram for the 99+ models but i cant relocate it on the big www yet. Ill post if i find any though.

Mutek

And just curious, whats with the condescending attitude towards a woman? If some guy on here called any of you other guys a babydoll or refered to you as a "good boy" (something i usually reserve for talking to my dogs) you would not have that crap and would be very pissed or insulted.

Be fair to women and treat them with some damn respect. They can do just as much as any male can.

With those types of answers its no wonder she never posted again after this question..

ES300doc

There are 6 ignition coils on the 2000 ES300 as member Mutek has pointed out. Your ES300 is now 14 years old. The engine has been through a lot of heat cycles in that period of time and since your concerned about about another coil failing, which is a very reasonable possibility I would suggest just buying 6 new ignition coils off of Ebay and having them installed. You should be able to find 6 new coils from $95.00 to $150.00 shipped. Should be 1 hour or less labor to have them installed, less than one incident of a failed coil.

PuReChaos

The original poster hasnt logged on since 07... we're reviving a 7 year old thread...

Mutek

Trust me, I considered that fact very much before posting PuReChaos.
But the thread stlll comes up on search engines when people are troubleshooting similar problems... I mean thats how I came across it.. Anyways, I see nothing wrong with there finally being a proper response to this question..
Mainly i'm just saying I would hate for other readers to come across this post and get confused by the inaccurate information stated by the initial thread contributors. (not to mention a majority of the replies were laced with poor stereotypes of the "typical woman" and the perception that they are ''car dumb", which was highly inappropriate and sexist.

Fritz330

Just to add fuel to the fire, my sister ran her car completely out of oil and the engine self destructed. She said she didn't even know engines had oil in them. Yes, there are dumb women out there.

artbuc

And your point is? Are you suggesting a man is born with a built-in low oil alert? I guess a man has never run his car on low oil and ruined an engine? I know a couple men who are dumb as stumps with absolutely no common sense when it comes to mechanical systems and/or car maintenance.

Fritz330

Sorry, my sister happens to be a female. I had nothing to do with it.

ES300MM

These engines will use the coil packs to compensate for bad plugs. I would recommend changing your plugs immediately if you have not already done so. Mine has 197k miles and all original coil packs. Bad plugs will burn coil packs out in a hurry.

Mrv8q

Thought I'd chime in here with this morning's experience. Got the P0300 0301 0302 codes, and limped the car home. Bought 2 Denso coils and 6 Denso Iridium plugs from my FLAPS.
Coil 1 is a piece of cake, coil 2 is under the plenum, and harder to get to. Glad I did 1 first, to get the feel and pass along this tip: I duct taped my spark plug socket to the 6 inch extension, ensuring they'd come out together. On plug 1, the socket stuck to the plug, and I had to (easily) fish it out with some needle nose pliers. This would have been harder to do on plug 2. Helpful to have those CV type flex joints for the sockets, and removing the ground wire on the back of the plenum helped. It's tight back there; an engine lift piece(?) blocks access back there, but it's doable.
I will attempt to change the other 4 plugs soon, but am not looking forward to plugs 4 and 6.
I'm guessing these are original coils; plugs were changed once. Car has 181K.