mewunit

my wife was driving the RX300 on the freeway yesterday and the car just quit running and I had to have it towed home. How can you tell if the computer is bad? All the relays and fuses check ok. I pulled the 7.5 amp fuse for EC1 and still no fire. Any suggestions on where to proceed from here?

Baetke

Did you check the gas gauge?

mewunit

there is sufficient gas in the car. over half tank

Baetke

Ok. A sudden and massive failure of the ECU is extremely unlikely. I would check the fuel system first. See if your fuel pump is running and if it is delivering fuel to the engine.

mewunit

ok. I will check .

hypervish

Is it cranking?

RX300CE

Is a timing belt broke ?

lexus114

+1 ^^, sounds like a god possibility.

salimshah

Try the mega thread 'having problems start here',

When you say died or not running .. it needs some additional information.

Salim

mewunit

That was my next thing to look at. the car turns over but it seems to not have any drag on the starter. Turns to easy. the car has well over the 100,000 miles.

LXtiming

Could be timing belt. Hope not.

LeoDLion

On my other car I can check if the timing belt is rotating by opening the engine oil fillup cap in the valve cover and peeking. I don't know about the Lexus but if you can try that.

JAB

Won't work in the RX; there is a baffle that prevents you from being able to see the camshafts and other parts of the valve train.

lexus114

Yeah that stupid baffle prevents that from happening. I would also like to see how clean or dirty it is under there with out having to remove the whole valve cover.