ONe21

When my wife was pulling out of a parking lot tonight it sounded like her car was missing (erratic exhuast pulses) and I says to meself "I better call her, because that doesn't sound good." So I start on my way out behind her trying to catch up, while fumbling my phone and trying to call her. Before I can call her I see hazards flashing in front of me and pull over behind her.

I told her to shut it off and she said "Everything seemed to be doing fine and when I got to around 40mph I tried to speed up and nothing happend, It just stayed at 40mph." She also said that it smelled like something was burning. I looked under the hood and checked the obvious fluids and everything check out. I thought about what it could be and thought it may be something in the ignition. Against my first thoughts, I asked her to see if it would start (to confirm my belief that it was in the ignition system). It started up fine, but about 2-3 seconds after that a sound that resembled a ball in a plastic box being shaken around occured. Immediately I had her turn the car off.

Since we bought the car (a week ago) it had a noisy lifter or valve that didn't really seem like a big deal. I just figured that I would get my friend to adjust/shim and it would be alright. I don't know if this is related to the problem, but the horrifying noise that I heard tonight sounded as if it came from the same area. This makes me think that perhaps a lifter loosened itself and is now bouncing around in my valve cover.

My friend and my uncle are coming to look at it tomorrow. They are both mechanics by trade, so hopefully we can get this thing figured out.

If anyone has any ideas as to what it might be they would be greatly appreciated.

dwebb99

iTrader: (17)

Ball bouncing around in a box, bought car with a noisy valve train.....sounds like something broke in the top of engine/valve train. Whatever you do, do not drive it, just run engine ONLY to diagnose problem and then shut down! Perhaps you should have had your friend and uncle check out the car PRIOR to purchasing. Let us know what you find. Hope it is not serious...

ONe21

Well, it wasn't extremely loud when I bought it. It was just loud enough to here when standing near the car. I know when something sounds like its going to blow apart, and it wasn't that kind of noise. The car has a little over 100k on it, so I wouldn't think that anything major would be going out, but then again I really don't know.

Well, my friend looked at it and he seems to think that it is something in the ignition or maybe the timing belt. He didn't have a lot of time to look because it started raining pretty bad. He is going to call his friend who does a lot of work on Lexus/Toyota cars to see if he might be able to diagnose it.

O. L. T.

iTrader: (17)

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we have friends that do not know Lexus is a non interference engine. In such case he would have been smacked for such comment. <--- like that.

Your friends are going to cost you more than a lexus tech running it on diagnostics.

ONe21

I've not been in the Lexus scene too long. My friend already told me that he didn't have a clue, but he would look at it and give me his thoughts. That was his guess. He is a Honda Tech, so he doesn't look at too many Toyota/Lexus cars... actually none.

Do you know what might be wrong. I can't get the car to a Lexus tech, unless I tow it; which wouldn't happen until this weekend. (I'm extremely broke). I just thought I would ask people to get an idea first.

BLK13X

I had a similar problem in my Soarer TT. Did any warning lights chime when the car started stuttering??? My Soarer would hesitate and stutter to get upto speed (wouldn't hold idle, revs weren't linear), then it'd start random stuttering when trying to hold a steady speed. Unfortunately it was a big job in my car (aftermarket alarm screwed part of the wiring harness in the car up and the car was only firing 5 cylinders). My mechanic (Soarer specialist) never wants to hear about it ever again it was pretty bad.

Get that car to a Lexus tech ASAP.

ONe21

That's scarey, because that is exacty what ours is doing. We don't have any aftermarket stuff, but I'm sure the harness can gay up for other reasons as well. How much did it cost you to get it fixed? It seems like the plug wires or something, I hope.

ONe21

Well, we opened up the covers over the distributor caps and found a couple of little chunks of redish colored plastic. We didn't know where it came from so we investigated further. We removed the Dist. cap and found the rest of the pieces, and some of it was ground into a fine powder. What this pile of ground plastic used to be is a rotor. We went and got two distributors and two rotors. We put it all in and fired it up.

It was still missing...

We then decided to pull the plugs. They were all sooted up and a couple of them looked like they needed replacing, so we bought some. We put them all in and started it up.

It was still missing...

We went back under to see which cylinders were not firing. We pulled the coil wire on the same side that the rotor self destructed on and tested it. There was nothing. So now we need to replace the coil, but there wasn't a place around here that had a coil.

Hopefully when we get the coil in, it will run. It's been a lot of fun so far

FireCode

iTrader: (1)

just curious but have you been through any high water or heavy rains lately? I say that because I was coming back from Fort Worth to Austin about 4 months back and in one town I went through some low water that I didnt see. It made a big splash..anyways, as I was pulling into the next town about 30 minutes away, the car started sputtering and wouldnt idle good. It was missing really bad. It barely ran anyways I got it to a mechanic and one of the coils had craked. I had that replaced along with the plugs and wires and everything was fine after that.....

ONe21

No, we haven't been through any high water since we got the car.\

Well, we put the coil in and it ran a lot better, but not great. When we drove it under normal conditions you can't really tell that it's missing, but when we got on it, it irratically accelerated.

The spark plugs that we replaced on the driver side looked kind of ruff, so the guy at the lot said that we should replace the plugs on the other side, and it should run fine.

Well, we replaced the plugs, and went ahead and replaced the dist. cap and rotor on the other side (which happend to be cracked), and decided that since it had cheap wires that didn't look like they were in too good of condition, I went and picked some up at Lexus.

It took forever to get everything installled and back together, because the little rubber things on the end of the wires came off in the plug holes. We spent forever fishing those out with a wire. When we finished I re-checked to make sure that I didn't forget anything before we started it up. I started it, and .... it sounds like it did before we replaced the broken rotor

My only guess would be that the wires are somehow switched. I don't really understand how that could happen, they are made a certain length so that they only reach where they are suppose to go. Another thought would be that the OTHER coil went bad in the process and now it's not firing. I don't know what it is, but I'm getting really frustrated.

FireCode

iTrader: (1)

run a check of the other coil and see if it is firing like it should.

TLW

damn man

how much did you pay for this SC??

im sorry to read all your problems

any chance of you getting a sevice manual

or any members in the area that can help out

ONe21

Well, I finally decided to bother my uncle because I couldn't figure it out. As soon as I brought it over he told me to start it up and said "you have a vaccum leak." He got a heater hose and stuck it by the driver side bank of cylinders and then went and got a small bottle of propane. He opened the valve on the bottle and stuck it by the injectors and the engine instantly smoothed out. He felt around the injector and felt that it wasn't seated right. He assumes that it is the insulator or the grommet at the bottom of the injector.

He tried to push it back in, but it wouldn't stay. It would smooth out when he pushed it down but it would slip back out. He went to Lexus (he went because he gets them at cost) and bought some grommets and insulators and is fixing it today.

He said that he didn't know if that is the whole problem, but he's sure that it's a majority of it anyway.

I'll give you guys an update tomorrow or this weekend. I appreciate all of the replies, suggestions, and help.

got_trd

Damn, your uncle is good. How long did it take him to find that?

ONe21

It took about 2-3 minutes. He's been a professional mechanic since he was 18; he's been doing it for 12 years I think. He must be pretty good, he makes around 70-80k a year (which is a lot of money for Alabama). I don't know how the heck he makes that much, but that's what I've been told; and his house and toys show it.