jonnydclar

So yesterday I went to start my wife's 99 GS300 and it gave one bit of a fire and then acted like it lost all compression. I ran the battery down fiddling with it but never got another hint of a fire. I was concerned that I had snapped the timing belt or slipped a cog but was able to confirm that was not the case. Then I pulled the spark plugs out to check the compression and it was quite low (50 before I put my battery charger on it and then I got 90 on 4 cylinders & 120 on cylinders 3 & 4). When I pulled the spark plugs out I noticed there was some oil leakage around my valve covers and the spark plug from cylinder 5 seemed to be especially covered in oil or fluid of some sort. I feared I had a blown head gasket but really doubted it as the car only has 150k on it and these engines are known for longevity. Also, it drove fine into our driveway and has no history of overheating.

After reading about the VVTi in this thread https://www.clublexus.com/forums/mai...mpression.html I figured I would try it. My valve filter did not look that bad to me and with about 5 squirts of brake cleaner I could see through it and it appeared good as new (local Toyota dealer didn't have one in stock). I also saw a video on youtube where the guy had cleaned his filter but it still didn't work properly (was running) and when he tapped on his VVTI solenoid it cleaned up and ran properly.

I took my VVTi solenoid / valve out and hooked it to 12 volts and it seems to work fine. I put it all back together (with new spark plugs) and left the wire harness off the VVTI. Within about 3 cranks It fired and after the 4th or 5th rotation it was running normally. I've started it a couple of times but haven't driven it yet. My OBD 2 reader won't connect so I'm waiting for a friend to come over after he gets off work so we can read the codes.

Has anybody had this happen and do you believe it was actually the VVTi causing it to not have any compression? Should I be concerned this will happen randomly (next time it probably won't be in my driveway)? Should I shell out the $100 to get a new valve?

Thanks for your experience / thoughts.

Jonathan