cisconj

I was driving my 98 lexus es300 today and came to a complete stop. I had to take off quickly as i was trying to get on the highway, but as i pressed down on the gas quickly the car hesitated and jerked back and fourth for a few seconds before slowly accelerating up to speed. The car has 137,000 miles on it and i brought it with 135,000. Is it possible that this is my timing belt that is going? Is there any way to find out for sure or do i have to just take my chances and have it changed. There also seems to be a light honing or vibrating sound when accelrating kind of like what you hear when a car has a bad wheel bearing but not sure if this is related.

siscolad

its the gearbox to cause that problem if your timing belt goes your motor stops and not cheap to fix

nsghtbrwry

Yeah I'll vote transmission as well. You should try changing the fluid first if it's black or brown/smells bad.

These engines are non-interference, so if your belt breaks you just need to have a TB job done. Not that that's cheap by any means.

Also, unlike the spring-tensioned timing belt in the contemporary 5S-FE 4cyl, these 1MZs are hydraulically-tensioned, so it is very rare to jump a tooth because the tensioner takes up slack as the belt ages and stretches.

cisconj

I think you are correct. Except i hear a rattle sound coming from the area of the timing belt.I am thinking of changing the trans oil and maybe add some lucas trans fix. I went to a shop today to change the trans oil but they said they wouldnt do it cause of the age of the car.

DKinATL

See if the Harmonic Balancer is wobbling. I looked at a 98 before buying my 2000 recently and the car was making a noise by the belt and I looked down and the thing was wobbling like hell, ha!

Wonder why the shop turned you away... That's strange.

siscolad

there is no reason why they shouldn't change the oil in the gearbox no matter how old the car is and they should have explained why they wouldn't , because the age of the car doesn't mean anything, sounds like there isn't much oil in the gearbox and the pump is trying to find oil to drive the car but that would have nothing to do with the noise at the front of the motor near the timing belt