MDlexus

This morning I started my car and noticed it was running kind of rough. The check engine light along with the VSC off and VSC light were also on. My car has about 55K miles. I will be bringing it to the dealer tomorrow. Any ideas on what might be wrong???

gserep1

Hello,
You are just over the factory warranty period. Did you get an extended warranty, or will you have to pay for this?

Actually, your problem may be emission related, and if it is, it may be covered up to 80,000 miles in some states (like California).

I would suspect a fuse of some type when the CHECK ENGINE, VSC light AND VSC OFF were illuminated together.

Please keep us informed on what happened!

GSEREP1

lexusk8

I had a similar problem to what gserep1 stated as emissions-related. The CEL and TRAC OFF lights showed up in my 2001 ES300 at about 68K miles last year. I took it into the dealership, they ran off the codes and evaluated the problem as a bad charcoal canister which needs to be replaced. Called up my extended warranty, but unfortunately it's not part of my coverage so it came down to paying out of pocket. It was quoted to be a $575 fix, but I talked them into paying 1/2 the price and did that

The service advisor informed me that a charcoal canister can go suddenly bad if on a regular basis you pump in extra gas (to round out the dollar amount) after the nozzle automatically stops at the gas pump. After I got the new charcoal canister, I quickly changed my gas pumping habit

VVT-i

You probably got one of those P0300-P0308 misfire code, since yoy say your car run rough and happened in the morning on cold start up. On the early production GS and LS430 there is a TSB for ECM reprogrammed or ECM flash depending on the vin range of your car. If you have a good relation with the dealership they probably do a Goodwill of it. Good Luck

MDlexus

spoke with the service rep today. He told me that all the cylinders were misfiring. He said I may have had a bad tank of gas?????? That's hard to believe since I go to only one Exxon station near my house. To flush everything it's going to cost me ~$350. I wonder if it was a simple fix made out to be something more??

VVT-i

Ask your SA to check on TSB# EG001-01 for misfire code P0300-P0308 as I'd stated on my previous post. If your 01 GS430 is an early production(08/00-10/00) and the vin# is match on the TSB, all you need just to reprogram the ECM. They just hook up the scan tool and down load the new software. It take about 40-45 minutes.