Lexus082

I have a sc400 and my friend just bought a 99 ES300. While he was driving it home after just purchasing the car, the cel light came on and I checked the code to find it was P1354. After researching that code we decided to replace the oil control valves. I also inspected the ocv filters and found them to be relatively clean.

So once I replaced the oil control valves I tested each control valve by supplying 12 volts (+ -) and each control valve seemed to work as it should. I was expecting one of the valves to test bad and not function when connected to 12v power source. He has only been able to drive the car for about thirty minutes since the ocv's were replaced.

One reported symptom is the engine would run ok, but then when or after it warms up thats when the engine will start running rough. So my thoughts were that possibly heat is causing a control valve to fail once it warms up. After the oil control valves tested ok when connected to the battery I think there's a slim chance that the oil control valve(s) was causing the problems triggering the p1354 code.

So my question is even though the oil control valves still seemed to function when connected to the battery, is there still a chance that one of the control valves was causing the problem. Like I said perhaps one of the control valves becomes "lazy" once the engine is warms up and is at normal operating temps. The fear is the problem being caused by the vvti gear, which I haven't researched alot but it seemed to be labor intensive. So is it still possible replacing those oil control valves has fixed the problem. Or is it a really slim chance since they tested good when connected to 12 volts.