Greetings friends. I have a 2001ES 300 with only 71,000 miles on it. Long story short it sat for months while I was abroad, I came back and I was having tons of misfires take it to a mechanic who ascertained the problem was a VVT solenoid. Before I took it to him I switched out: spark plugs, coils, fuel injectors, and ended up needed a new manifold because I broke a bolt into my old one. **** mechanic installed the fuel injectors for me and they were leaking and he refused to fix it. I ended up fixing it myself which required, taking off the upper intake manifold. I now have three codes which I can’t seem to fix:

p0440,p0441,p0446. I switched the blue VSV today near the fuel rail to no change. My problem is that I have poor acceleration (pulsing up and down and lagging behind) when going up hill, it cannot accelerate well at all, at high speeds I feel like there are hiccups or changes in RPM. I’m at a loss here and don’t know what to do - don’t have money for mechanic and don’t have tools to check for vacuum leaks.

I think it could be the vacuum valve near the air filter but can’t find diagnostics for that, could be the oxygen sensor in front near radiator, or could be that there is a vacuum leak when I reinstalled the upper intake manifold. I’m in dire need of help.

thank you so much.

 

I sound like a broken record but are the oil control valves genuine Toyota parts from an actual Toyota dealer? Anything besides OEM will not work correctly out of the box.

 

Not sure - the problem came to light only after I started working on the fuel injector that was leaking. I'm not sure how to check, but the car ran fine besides the leak after the mechanic changed the solenoid. The main problem of bad uphill and acceleration / weird tachometer jumping came after when I removed upper intake manifold to replace the injector O ring. Could maybe be one of the o2 sensors that is reading FAIL on ODB. Not sure I'm just a wrench turner and a poor one at that.

 

p0440 is often due to a bad or missing gas cap. The other codes that can get complicated, my hunch is you have a vacuum leak and/or vacuum and intake lines that are not installed correctly. You can check for vacuum leaks using a spray bottle filled with water, or use a propane torch although this method does have some risk. Direct the spray or propane over different parts of the engine if idle changes you have a leak.

 

Hello,

Figured I would chime in as well.

Starting to sound like a broken record as well, but throwing parts on problems usually results in even more problems to occur. New OEM Coils are about $100 Each, an aftermarket that I would at least consider starts at about $60 Each, same for the Injectors. Most often the parts that people buy to throw in and see if it helps end up being very low quality, which can make a simple issue a Lot worse now that the fault could be waiting at every corner. All that is to say that if you still have Original parts that came with your car, I would suggest swapping them back in to start from the beginning, with that low of a mileage there is no chance all of those went bad.

After you are sure that all the parts in the car are either Original or Good Quality, reset all the codes and see what changes. After that, here is a thread describing next steps, and here is a thread that also shows distinctly faulty readings, which could be quite helpful.

Here is a thread about VVT solenoids, below is a video of what it looks like if the VVT solenoid malfunctions, it felt about the same for me, maybe a little better as my Solenoid was loosing contact intermittently. You can also try powering each Solenoid separately like it is described in a linked thread to see if you get any reaction out of them, but if they are not OEM, I would agree with LeX2K, they are not to be trusted, especially considering that OEM is not even that expensive.


EVAP codes are among the trickiest ones to diagnose, they can come up completely at random. In my case, I've gotten P0440 for a blown Gas Cap once, then I got P0446 for a EVAP VSV, here is a thread about it, then I got P0440 again for a blown membrane in the Charcoal Canister, here is a thread about that, and now I have a P0442 that I am still trying to diagnose. Sometimes it seems as if I fix all EVAP codes in my 2000 ES300 either something else would come up or the universe would fold.. Either way, go over all the Solenoids in the car, and all the connections, especially around the Charcoal Canister, as it is in a pretty vulnerable location to rust and road debris, though I would sort out the engine issues before going into the EVAP system, as all those problems may have one root cause.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

 

EVAP diagnostics can be difficult with small leaks, best be done with Lexus' scanner or those that can turn on and off EVAP components individually to localize the leaks.

I wasted a lot of time and money with shops that were just guessing and swapping part. An ex Lexus Master Tech with the right scanner found the small leak in 20 minutes.